


Cassian Andor - Dark Purge

by Valkurion



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Action, Action/Adventure, Adventure, Bisexual Cassian, Bisexuality, Blood, Choking, Combat, F/F, Gayness too, Gore, Ground Combat, Homosexial Juno, Homosexuality, Lesbians, Lightsaber, Lightsaber Combat, Lightsaber Stabbing, Mild Gore, Pre-Rogue One, Rise of the Empire Era, Rising Tension, Rogue One - Freeform, Shoulder Stabbing, Space Combat, Strong Language, The Force, Violence, mild nudity, original trilogy, rebellion era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-21
Updated: 2017-03-29
Packaged: 2018-09-19 02:18:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 36,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9413519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Valkurion/pseuds/Valkurion
Summary: Captain Cassian Andor is Rebel Intelligence, in the fight against the Empire since he was six years old, the man is battle hardened by espionage and lying for a living. He has done many things he's not proud of, and many things he is. This is one of those missions.Far across the galaxy, a dark force is rising, a battle station with a weapon of the deadliest magnitude being built, but closer to home, the Imperials are developing a program to turn the already useful Stormtroopers into the ultimate killing machines. The Dark Purge Project, headed by Grand Admiral Thrawn is taking shape, and Juno Eclipse, a rebel spy ousted from the Imperial hub on Coruscant is the only one who can get the information to the Alliance. But first, she needs to decode it, with the help of a stolen and reprogrammed Imperial droid by the designation K-2SO.The adventure will take Cassian and his band of Rebels across the galaxy and into the heart of the murderous Empire, with more than a few high-ranking players in the Emperor's arsenal taking notice...





	1. We Have A Mission For You, Part 1

Space was always cold and dreary as soon as one exited the fading blue gleam of the stars of hyperspace and Cassian Andor was not a stranger to the disorientation that one experienced coming out of hyperspace. It had been a long trip too, from the most outback worlds of the Outer Rim directly to Coruscant all on his own. Without even stopping to resupply from a base as well.

It had been his orders. To complete his mission on Nar Shaddaa and then turn over directly to Coruscant with all haste to make contact with an informant. Why it had to be Cassian he had no idea. But Cassian never really questioned his orders. 

Or at least, he never openly defied them. And that was what made him a Captain and one of the most expert Rebel Intelligence Officers in the Rebel Alliance. 

But today he was a humble dock worker about to ditch his untraceable U-Wing and sneak inside one of the hundreds of thousands of docks that Emperor Palpatine had littered all over Coruscant’s main upper city level. From there he would make a quick change, a disguise of some sort and then sneak aboard another ship, a labor transport that would take him down to a lower level of the infamous undercity of the Imperial Capital. 

Idle with thoughts of apprehension and mild exhaustion from his last mission in Hutt Space, and filled with the usual nerves that came with entering the Core Worlds, he breathed. Steadily he slowed down the sub-light engines and brought the U-Wing steadily to a snail’s pace. He needed some time to think about how he was going to do this. He had never been to Coruscant before, not ever, and he had heard the rumors, the reports about what the hub of the Old Republic looked like these days, since the dark times, since the Emperor. 

Cassian could not say he was looking forward to seeing the dark of space, which was humble and homey to him, turn to the blue and white of the atmosphere. If anything he hoped to enter those Imperial skies in the dead of night. Even a thunderstorm would help make it look how it felt. 

What he did not want to see was normalization, was a subversive paradise. Not after all he had done and seen. He wanted Coruscant to look every bit as evil and devilish as he had thought it was. 

The small astromech droid in the back of the U-Wing sounded off, coming out of the low power mode that it slipped into while the longevity of lightspeed. Now it was up and whirling and moving around the back of the ship, talking up a storm in binary to drag Cassian out of his melancholic staring at the planet coming closer toward them. He turned to see the astromech unit and smiled at the company, the one thing that he did hate about lightspeed was that he flew it alone. Being in a thinly stretched Rebellion with barely enough funding for an Intelligence Service anyway was bad enough. Being a covert agent meant that Cassian flew almost every single mission alone, or at least with no sentient/organic company. Droids were all he often had, and R7-K8 was all he had right now. 

“You’re awake,” Cassian affirmed to the droid as he set the small U-Wing onto autopilot and moved into the back to change. He thanked the stars that the Empire had not yet discovered how the Rebels were using the U-Wings. And one with no guns could pass through customs with relative ease. All Cassian had to hide was his rifle, which he was doing. “Find anything on the HoloNet while you slept? Any good vids circulating the Core?” He asked the droid, trying to relax.

That was how, he would always surf the HoloNet for vids, any and all, whether they be movies, shows or even some adult films at times. Not for pleasure, well, for some but not the sexual kind. Being in RI did something along the lines of making Cassian feel less of a human than he was, and watching vids was a good way to come back. Dissociation of the mind was slowly killing him day by day. 

Kayeight made a series of chipper whirrs and beeps, telling Cassian all about a small cache of adult films it had found while sifting through data dumps as they passed through the Mid Rim. Outback and semi-civilised worlds around there had a lot to look through. And since they passed Ryloth, there was a treasure trove waiting for outbound signals. The small droid with the round dome head had had a field day picking them up and packaging them for Cassian for later. Twi’leks were a favorite of the galaxy, and Cassian was no stranger to finding them appealing in pornography.

Both male and female. 

“Huh really? Well thanks, friend, though they’ll have to wait. Another mission. We have to meet an informant on level thirteen-thirteen,” Cassian told the small astromech what it already knew. But the agent liked to retread through mission details if anything to keep himself on his toes.

Again Kayeight made naught but whirrs and beeping noises in report, going over the details of the landing for Cassian. He needed to hide the rifle, into the flooring where the Imps couldn’t scan past the layer material. Then he had to change into more simpler clothing, then cold wipe the communication console for the time he was on Coruscant, and then hide the U-Wing in one of the designated Rebel spots. There it would be handled by an agent on the ground, and Cassian himself would go meet with the informant. 

It was a lot easier said than done. And Cassian nearly bit his lip several times as he set the U-Wing down in the Rebel Warehouse and left it with a rather trashy looking Toydarian. Some deal of credits was obviously behind his loyalty, but Captain Andor still had his doubts.

Kayeight let loose a short series of beeps and Cassian sniggered as they left the warehouse and walked to the transit station. “Hah, you can say that again,” he told the droid before they stepped out into the evening dusk on the capital world. 

It was every bit as normal as Cassian had feared, and from his position, with the white and green Kayeight at his feet, he couldn’t even see the monuments that had been described to him. Not the monolithic and disgusting Imperial Palace, not the ruins of the Jedi Temple, nor the massive statue of Palpatine himself in the central square of the old Senate District. All he could see was something that Kayeight told him was the building for ‘The Celestial Power Project’. 

“Look into that building Kayeight, personnel and purpose if you can and upload it right to the Alliance too,” Cassian told the droid, hoping it could do just that.

Then, with nothing more to see, Cassian and Kayeight made their way to the transit hub, fitting seamlessly in with the rest of the masses that saw him as an equal no one. There he was, in plain sight, with Imperial Dropships and Pacification Patrols zooming overhead, as well as TIE Fighters. Cassian hadn’t seen something so… Imperial before, not even after his years of hauntings in the Mid and Outer Rim. In fact, he was amazed that there were no Star Destroyers in the sky, although he had seen a small task force of them just in orbit. And he was sure that there would be thousands in drydock and in R&D, possible even some very old Vindicator-Class Star Destroyers kicking around, left over from the Clone Wars. 

The Rebellion could do with a couple of Star Destroyers, even if they were almost nineteen years old. 

The next couple of hours were spent getting to the transport and then sorting and providing all the forged paperwork for the Stormtrooper battalion between Cassian and the dead drop down to the lower levels. As if there was not a vast amount of Stormtroopers, Snowtroopers, Sandtroopers, Shoretroopers and any other denomination in the Rims, Cassian could see the massive difference here. Coruscant was a hive of Imperial troopers, and it made him sick. He could imagine them not being here, like in the Clone Wars, no white armor at all. Despite not even seeing the time, he missed it as he boarded the small shuttle leading down to the undercity. 

Forged papers had gotten him the way, now he was relying on his own initiative and instincts to survive the rest of the way. Some had described the lower levels of Coruscant as hell or in other words any other Outer Rim or Hutt World. Cassian has seen too many of them, but still, he had his hand on his concealed pistol, which miraculously had made it past the checkpoints. The alloys it was made from were a rarity even in the Alliance. Being a high-level agent, he had managed to snag a pistol’s worth. 

Something slipped past his back, and then suddenly a person pressed on it as they stood in the dark room of the transport, all the seat taken. Kayeight let loose a trembling whirl of sound seeing the figure press against Cassian. The man had no idea who it was. 

“You took your sweet time Andor,” a harsh and Imperial feminine voice whispered into his ear, setting his hairs on end and making him tighten his grip around the holster of his pistol inside his coat. Whoever the woman was, he had a bad feeling about, and stood on edge, not wanting this mission to go sour. The thought and possibility of shooting his way back across the walk to the U-Wing did not sound nice. 

Cassian’s eyes widened and spiked as he held his pistol close, ready to whip it out and plug one round in the Imperial’s back, hopefully before she could signal the Stormtroopers at the exits to the shuttle. They were one a one-way trip down to level thirteen-thirteen and that would take a while, being in a position such as this for that long had Cassian wanting to vomit. But it was mostly just the nerves, the intel had said that the meet would be anywhere from the shuttle to the ground. Perhaps she was the informant. But the intel had said nothing of sex or voice. It had Cassian alert. 

“Don’t do anything stupid and pull out that pistol, because you’ll have these Stormies on you before you can put one in me, darling,” the woman said some more, with a slightly seductive vigor in the inflection of her voice. It did nothing but creep him out. 

“Who are you?” Cassian asked plain and simply, trying to dull his veteran instincts and relax his fingers, but he couldn’t. Not until he got her name. 

The woman took a small sip from a hip flask, or that was what it sounded like from Cassian’s point of view, he had still not turned his head the whole way around to check what she looked like. To him, it was just a suspended voice that for all he knew could be the Governor of Lothal. 

But she was not. 

“First you give me your Rebel Intelligence Identification Code and Keyword so I can make sure I’m talking with the real Cassian Andor and not some fake from II,” the woman demanded, seemingly pointing something sharp into the side of Cassian’s pelvis. He could tell from the point it was a small vibroblade without even looking. He’d had plenty stuck at and in him before. But she was serious, and he suddenly relaxed a little. 

Calming his grip and letting go he slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out his Rebel ID card and slid it down for her to take. “There’s my card, and the Keyword is Chariot. Now tell me what in the Force is going on!”

“There’s been a change of plans Captain Andor, we’re not meeting on level thirteen-thirteen and it’s going to be a little while longer before I can tell you exactly what is happening, but we have to be quick and get to my apartment,” the woman told him, getting only mild louder as she took the blade away and gripped at her own pistol. She took up a stance and Kayeight made a small noise as she did, noticing how she looked like she was ready to attack the troopers near the entrances. 

They hadn’t left yet, the shuttle had not departed, but exiting now, especially for her would arouse suspicion, it was much easier to simply shoot her way out. Cassian, meanwhile, felt his stomach sink and turn queasy. He felt a shadow of change loom over himself and the woman at his back, and he suddenly knew what she was about to do.

His mission had changed, and he had suddenly been rused himself by whoever she was. Instead of him coming here, grabbing information and heading back to Yavin after the mission to Nar Shaddaa, he had suddenly been nabbed by the woman without even realizing it. She had him right where she needed him, and now she was about to take him with her and she stormed across the upper level and down to her house of her own ways. This was bad for Cassian, and he gave Kayeight a dreaded look as he heard a pistol being pulled from a holster. He had no choice but to pull out his own as he heard the troopers take notice. 

“Hey, no weapons are allowed in transit, where did you two get those guns?”

“Karabast, she’s the woman from the warrant alert. Juno Eclipse! Get your hands up!”

Cassian took a sharp swallow and gritted his teeth, cursing under his breath. “Oh, I have a bad feeling about this,” he spat in his latin accent of the Outer Rim and then held his breath. Juno Eclipse, of course, it was her, he’d heard of her in Rebel Intelligence, even ran ops for her as an information handler from the field. But he’d never met her, until now. 

And her cover had been blown. Which meant his cover had been blown. And now he had to shoot his way through Coruscant holding her hand. The worst excuse for a day and he was tired enough. 

From the bridge of the main command building near that sector, Grand Admiral Thrawn could see the small amount of disturbance from the window. Seeing the skiffs carrying more and more Stormtroopers to the scene of the shuttle explosion around the corner. Unbeknownst to most of the other officers around the small command deck, Thrawn knew already who it was, at least one of them. He was a master of deducing things, of psychology and sociology, and he was a sociopath as well. Which made him the perfect tool to be groomed by Emperor Palpatine himself. How else was he the only alien member of the Admiralty of the Imperial Military? He was simply that good at what he did. 

“Who the hell has caused that?” One man in a similar set of white tunic clothes called out as he looked past Thrawn out into the streets of Coruscant. 

The blue alien Grand Admiral with the blood red eyes turned around, sipping his small cup of tea as was his evening ritual. Seeing the stark white Orson Krennic away from his posts at either Geonosis or Eadu was always a disappointment to Thrawn. Progress was stalling on his little project and the Chiss would sooner see it dismantled than completed. Even with Dr. Erso, it ran too many risks of failure and Thrawn hated failure. 

“That, Director Krennic, would be Juno Eclipse,” Thrawn slithered to Krennic, sipping his last sip of tea and setting the cup and saucer to the side. “She’s been on the run since this morning when my Deathtroopers failed to apprehend her at the Academy,” he informed the Director. A false title to Thrawn and one Orson had merely attained from his feeble position as head of his project. Thrawn looked down on him and had for years since his ascension to the Admiralty. 

“That simply says plenty of your squads Grand Admiral.”

“And what exactly brings you to Coruscant, Orson? Should you not be at Geonosis with your pet project? Or at Eadu with Dr. Erso?” Thrawn asked the Director, whose brow furrowed the more and more the Grand Admiral pressed him. Any minute the Chiss would bring up Governor Tarkin, and then Orson would lose his cool. 

Thus Krennic retreated before facing any further questions from Thrawn, who turned back to the window and observing the small amount of chaos Juno was causing down below to get to her lodgings. Thrawn had been set with capturing her, since he was the one who found out about her guilt, about how she was a double agent. After his failure against Hera Syndulla, the capture of Juno Eclipse would be something to earn the good graces of the Emperor once again. Or at least of Lord Vader. 

Almost ethereally, Thrawn moved over to the small communication console where an Ensign was diverting incoming and outgoing communications between police and troopers downstairs. Thrawn soon took over, grabbing her wrist and attention. “Please patch me into my Deathtrooper squad for me,” he told the woman and she complied if anything a little chilled by his icy cold voice. 

“Sir!” The head trooper came over the com, to which Thrawn smiled a little with elation. 

“Commander, the ruckus outside is being caused by Juno Eclipse, no doubt with another Rebel Agent come in for extraction,” the Chiss began, still smiling from his overconfidence. “Your orders are to search the surrounding area for the ship that agent came in, as well as set up a trap at Eclipse’s apartment. And when she arrives,” Thrawn told, looking out the window again and at the small confusion and rising smoke from the destroyed transport shuttle. She had laid out her hand in blowing it up and given Thrawn her exact location when he knew not where she went to ground. Telling him through that that she had the backup. Now he would spring a counter for her, and ensnare her and Cassian Andor in his creepy web. He merely had to wait for the Deathtroopers to go to work now.

“Shoot to kill Commander. Eclipse and her counterpart.”

To Be Continued…


	2. We Have A Mission For You, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thrawn receives a communication from Lord Vader himself, demanding why Juno Eclipse has not yet been captured, while Juno herself and Cassian fight through the streets of Coruscant to reach Eclipse's apartment, where Cassian Andor makes a shocking discovery about the young Imperial turncoat, in the form of a defecting redhead running for her life from Emperor Palpatine herself, and in her possession is something the young Captain never thought he would ever see.

The day was ending rather rapidly after his orders, and Thrawn, Grand Admiral Thrawn took his leave for his private residence in the base of Imperial Intelligence, his lodgings outside of his Star Destroyer. The Chimaera was about the only platitude apart from his rank and mission that Thrawn had squeezed out of the Emperor, and still, he had every single other admiral in the Imperial Navy look down at him.

The strange thing was, Thrawn did not care that they did. He was Chiss, an alien, outside of the norm for the Imperial Navy, and yet he did not care how he was looked at. Nor did he care to change it.

Grand Admiral Thrawn was a man of pure and unfiltered excellence and results. The fact that Juno Eclipse had evaded his spiderweb once before was merely a frustration to him, now he would ensnare her and eliminate her. As for her newly arrived Rebel counterpart, he would have his fun with them. They were surely Rebel Intelligence, as he had deduced by the bait and switch of their escape from the shuttle depot near the ascension chamber, they were tactics he’d seen before. 

From those very tactics, the execution of them and the movements of Eclipse and the Rebel afterwards, Thrawn had deduced the Rebel to be a human, no doubt and more so a human male born on the planet of Fest. He had corroborated that from art and old battle tactics of their once proud militia. The rest was a simple chess game of assumed estimation and deduction, until Thrawn had finally conjured a name at least from the corals of his bristling and sociopathic mind, all the while staring at a holo projection of Fest itself. The history lesson took him through the Clone Wars, to the insurrectionist cell and the CIS there, and then to the violence of the Carida Academy on more guesses and deft hand play of deduction. Rumors and dossiers crossing his desk came through his tunnelled mind and into view before him, until he matched what was a small profile of a man to a name. A name Thrawn had heard many many times. 

It was first Ahsoka Tano, before her downfall on Malachor. Then Agent Kallus, but Thrawn had silenced that worm himself years ago. Until now the name crossed his crosshairs again.

“At last I have you in my web once again. Fulcrum.”

The door to the cove of holographic art displays and projections of planets, craft, locations, and buildings, as well as faces and dossiers, opened and an officer wandered in with a slight cough. He had obviously interrupted Thrawn’s inner sanctum and thus was already fearing for his life as he stumbled over his own feet. 

“What is it, Ensign?” Thrawn asked without even turning to see which one of his stationaries it was. Not that he even remembered their names or ranks or numbers. He was too proud to remember any apart from Paelleon, who dealt with the lower downs. 

The cowering uniformed man stood up straight, shivering at how Thrawn did not even regard him with the look of his profusely red eyes. Eyes that burned like Mustafar itself. The very thought of the volcanic ball that was almost a planet made the Ensign remember his task, why he had come and disturbed Thrawn from his thoughts and investigations. 

“Grand Admiral…” The Ensign stuttered.

“What is it, Ensign? Out with it.”

“Sir, Lord… Lord Vader demands you to make contact with him, he’s heard about the explosion at the shuttle depot,” the cowering recruit informed the whitely dressed and pressed Grand Admiral. And there the truth lay, the menacing enforcer Thrawn had only met a couple of times since his return from the Unknown Regions and his eradication of most of Phoenix Squadron in the Outer Rim. 

Darth Vader was on Coruscant. 

“Lord Vader?” Thrawn echoed back, this time turning his head a little from the display on his desk, the image of Fest. It dissipated and soon he was left staring at the image behind his desk, the small mural that was a burnt banner of the Twi’Lek leadership under Cham Syndulla. The Conquest of Ryloth still left a burning pride inside him, even if he was not a part of the initial campaign. He still relished the reports, and even his own encounters with now General Syndulla made him smile. Even though she had eluded his grasp and defeated him at times, Thrawn knew her to be an admirable foe. But he was not about to face Hera again, as much as he wanted to. He was about to come personally face to face with Lord Vader, and even that rattled some small semblance of fear Thrawn still had for the unknown. 

But he relaxed his clenched up throat and soothed out the tense muscles of his tones back under the pristine white uniform he had elected to wear, just like that of Director Krennic, and of Admiral Yularen. He breathed a subtle sigh and unclenched his fists, pressing a sequence into the desk’s holo projector. 

“Yes thank you, Ensign, I’ll take the call in here,” he told the recruit, signaling him to leave faster than he entered. “Leave.”

The Ensign followed as instructed to the letter and stumbled out of the doorway, allowing the room to grow dark again as the holo began to spool up. Thrawn trembled just a tad before the incoming call of the masked being that was Darth Vader and once the mask appeared before his red eyes in a blurry flurry of blue, Thrawn bowed his head in respect to the Dark Lord. 

“Lord Vader, the honor is all mine, My Lord,” Thrawn greeted, keeping his blue head bowed and his syllables perfectly pronounced, showing off what was regarded by many as a traditional Imperial accent whatever that meant now. Still, Thrawn was glad to have in greeting the Emperor’s enforcer. 

Already, that menacing breathing sounded through the static of the hologram transmission, and it set Thrawn on edge as it did with even the most resolute of officers. In fact, as it did with everyone that was not himself or the Emperor. Thrawn was more willful than most to not tense up upon hearing it every few seconds or so. But then he saw the mask bob, an expression behind that it was reduced to pure menace by the redness of the eyes and the grill of his rebreather. 

“...Grand Admiral Thrawn…” 

Thrawn still kneeled, his head still bowed until he heard an increase in the pitch of Vader’s breath. “Rise Grand Admiral, do not stand on ceremony when your lack of competence to capture Juno Eclipse has a part of Coruscant in terror,” Vader jabbed, already putting the Grand Admiral on a warpath to defend his honor from the encroaching Dark Lord. Her escape the first time was due to inopportune timing and pressure from II to release the trap prematurely, and now Thrawn was backpedaling and working around the standard protocol to destroy her. 

“My Lord all efforts to neutralize Miss Eclipse are being made,” Thrawn reassured the masked Dark Jedi before him as he finally stood once more, tall and proud, even in the presence of Darth Vader. “I have dispatched Deathtroopers and am confident that I have her trail well in my web.”

“And what of the Rebel who has reportedly landed to assist her in escaping the planet?” Vader asked, how he was even on the planet. Vader’s prowess and skills of reading one’s mind even through a hologram were legend and Thrawn was just now getting to see it unfold before him. To avoid the other legendary fate Vader wreaked upon his subordinates, Thrawn would need to tread more carefully than he usually did with higher-ups. 

It was time to play his card, the new one Thrawn had just drawn from his genius and sociopathic mind that had earned him the rack of squares pinned on his ivory white uniform. 

“We have an idea as to who is assisting Eclipse and we are confident to locate his ship,” the Chiss reported, eagerly hoping Lord Vader would ask just who this young Rebel was, as Thrawn was very rapidly narrowing in on his true identity aside from his handle. “You’ll be elated to know he is the current runner of the Fulcrum handle Agent Kallus was executed for over Lothal some years ago. However this Rebel is a far younger handler, and from Fest as to my investigation,” Thrawn continued, explaining the workings of his eradication of this Fulcrum after Vader had inspired II with his defeating of Ahsoka Tano.

Vader folded his brutish and black arms before Thrawn, possibly pleased, possible displeased, it was impossible to tell under the mask, and Thrawn was still relatively in the dark about Vader as a person and an enigma. He had certainly no read on the Dark Lord’s expression under the menacing faceplate. 

“Good work Grand Admiral,” Lord Vader complemented, much to even Thrawn’s surprise. Thus far the Dark Lord had done nothing but surprise the Chiss at every turn and meander through their minefield of a report and briefing. But now Thrawn was somewhere, somewhere he liked to be very much and thus let out a sharp grim at what he sensed was a culmination of the conversation. “Eliminate Eclipse with all speed and deliver this Fulcrum to me Grand Admiral, before the commotion around the city takes the Emperor’s eyes,” Darth Vader finished, relaxing his biceps and unfolding his arms.

Thrawn bowed once more, signaling the conversation over before his superior could, a dangerous move. “The matter will be resolved in a few hours, My Lord,” Thrawn assured the black suited enforcer once again. 

“I hope so Grand Admiral. Don’t fail us again.”

The transmission ended in a haze of fading blue back into the blackness of the dimly lit room that was Thrawn’s private art collection study. And he smiled. Thrawn smiled before himself as the holo of Fest once again took place at the desk and the dossiers returned with it. There was a name and a face that it belonged to in the pile of dossiers, and that one face with the adjoining name was the new Fulcrum and the same man that had descended upon Coruscant hours ago to meet with and new subsequently aid Juno Eclipse until she was in the hands of the Rebellion with the knowledge she had. The knowledge that Thrawn so desperately desired to be back in his own hands. For he knew if she delivered it to the Rebels, he would no doubt feel a certain degree of wroth from the Dark Lord Vader. 

That was if Grand Admiral Thrawn let Fulcrum and Eclipse escape his web that was so close to ensnaring them. It was only a matter of hours before it finally did. Before Juno was dead and this Fulcrum was in an Imperial holding cell aboard his Chimaera. Then the real game began. 

“The total destruction of the Rebellion,” Thrawn whispered to himself, as he got back to sifting through the files. One name would be in there that would reveal who Fulcrum was. It was up to the Chiss to locate that very name. 

Cassian and Juno rounded the corner in the complex, blaster pistols in hand and Cassian’s furry collar brushing against the faint lines of stubble on his cheek. He was panting as silently as he could but they had been running between and under barrage after barrage of blaster fire since she had blown up the work depot shuttle. It was a brash move, one he had totally not agreed with. Killing so many men and women for the simple need of a distraction they needed to get out of the nest while they could. Juno knew it, and as Fulcrum, Cassian knew it too. 

He also knew there was almost no way off the buzzing hornet’s nest that the area of Coruscant had become without another perhaps bigger sacrifice of Imperial citizens. Colonel Dravin would have his head and his rank for something bigger than a work transport shuttle. What else did Juno have in mind?

The blonde haired woman, still in a torn and tattered Imperial officer uniform, looked around the corner of the corridor of her apartment complex. The sirens of police and the repulsorlifts of Stormtrooper Shuttles could still be heard outside, they were very quickly being boxed in and if that were not bad enough, the Deathtroopers were already skulking around the complex. 

“I hope you know what you are doing,” Cassian grunted in a whisper, pressing his head back to the wall and keeping his profile as thin as he possibly could. 

The day’s tarnishment had already made him gently despise the woman in black before him as she looked back at him. There was a Deathtrooper ahead, between them and her apartment. She hoped to the stars that Kayeight had reached the U-Wing already and that he and the Toydarian were in the air ready. She had sunk a lot of credits to making sure the alien was on the up and up and completely in her pocket. On Coruscant, with Deathtroopers around that still made even a Toydarian’s loyalty shakey. What was worse was the presence of the black armored killing machines in the first place. It meant that one or more of three of the most dangerous people in the entire Navy were coordinating her capture, and she had a fairly good guess that it was the man in white with blue skin. 

“Thrawn,” she let slip, thinking about how must have jumped her prematurely in the Academy earlier that morning. 

“What? Who is Thrawn?” Cassian zipped in a question, his voice still low. He hated being in the dark, and right now was as dark as it could be, not just the corridor but the entire situation. Still, Cassian Andor had absolutely no idea who Juno Eclipse really was, what she was doing, what she knew that the Alliance had to so much, or how she even planned for them to escape aside from Kayeight. That was not going to be enough right now. A U-Wing was not designed to run a blockade. 

Juno denounced his curiosity and looked back to the Deathtrooper pacing the corridor with his rifle raised and his guard on full alert. It was out of the question to run behind and snap his neck. “Do you have a flashbang?” She asked Cassian, a look of desperate haste on her pale white face. 

For a moment, as Cassian looked at her, with her pale white flesh, her blonde hair and blue eyes, the whole look of what Palpatine wanted his ideal Imperial society to look like, Cassian thought that he could not in all good conscience hand her the grenade suddenly in his hand. What if this were a ploy? What if she were suddenly about to prime it and drop the thing at his feet, only to allow the trooper to come and restrain him? He had to remind himself that he were still Fulcrum even if he was a field agent. He was still a Rebel Intelligence coordinator and ran intel for multiple cells and multiple insiders and Rebel collaborators everywhere. He was still an asset to the Rebels, and therefore an Imperial target. 

Could he honestly trust her?

In the end, there was only one thing he could do. “Get ready,” he told her with an angered face as he pulled the pin on the tube and tossed it into the corridor. Both of them closed their eyes and covered their ears until the vibrations around them stopped. Then Juno revealed herself, blasting three whole rounds of warm green laser into the black studded chest of the lone Deathtrooper. 

Advancing, with no regard for Cassian, she walked on ahead. “You don’t trust me,” she stated, matter of factly as he quickly caught up, grabbing the Deathtrooper’s rifle to use as his own in case reinforcements showed up anytime soon. “Understandable, but foolish. If I were still playing for the Imperials you’re going to find something out now that will shock you to the core,” Juno told him, a little coldly and with a plain savagery. 

“What are you going to show me? That you’re engaged to a Sith Acolyte?” He asked as she swiped her security card over the sealed lock of her apartment door. 

From inside as they both entered came a different voice, one still female, but a little deeper than Juno’s and with more spice and exotica in it that her standard Imperial accent contained. The voice he heard was not from the Core, as Juno was, it was from the Mid Rim, which Cassian found odd, especially why it was coming from Juno’s apartment. 

“Well, you’re not exactly wrong,” the new woman spoke from inside the room. She was slightly shorter than Juno, with a hood made from a black scarf around her head to cover what Cassian could see was fiery red hair. She wore fingerless gloves and some mishmash of black and grey garbs that looked a little like the remnants of Acolyte cloths. And from there Cassian knew exactly who she was, from rumours and from a leaked dossier that some informant has supplied to the Alliance months ago. It told of a woman with red hair that knew how to use a lightsaber but barely the force, who was being trained by Palpatine as part of his Honour Guard scheme. It created powerful enforcers like Vader only not as powerful to crush Rebellion splinter cells on Outer Rim systems and planets in the Western Reaches. 

His blaster holding hands dropped to his front and with one of them, Cassian pulled at his chin in disbelief. “I don’t believe this,” he grunted audibly before pacing in a burning anger as Juno stood beside the ginger woman. “You’re that woman that came through, wanting to defect, from Palpatine’s training program. You. You’re Mara Jade,” he gasped and sighed while trying to push him mild anger out through his limbs. 

Just another detail from the shadowy Juno Eclipse to make his day and his life all the more hazardous and convoluted. What next, a weapon that could destroy a planet would show itself above the sky? Would they have to outrun a nuclear explosion?

“Yes, she is,” Juno told him before Mara could open her mouth. “Cassian we’ll have to explain later, we need to get out of here before more of Thrawn’s Deathtroopers arrive,” she followed, moving to the bedroom and quickly grabbing a bag that must have already been packed before hand. This was it, they had to leave and they had to do so quickly before they were captured and Juno destroyed. She was the only one that Thrawn would relish in the killing. Mara, he needed to be returned to Palpatine and Cassian he needed to torture for intel, being Fulcrum. It was far too dangerous to remain. 

Still angered beyond comprehension, Cassian pushed past his rash of annoyance at Juno and pulled out his comlink, the other of which was in Kayeight’s possession. “Kay, are you there? We need the ship now!” He roared into the mic to the droid. The little astromech responded with a series of beeps affirming that the U-Wing was inbound. 

Suddenly they could hear the low-pitched hum of the repulsorlifts and the engines whirl outside, which told them all that it was coming to the far end of the corridor, to the window, as planned by Juno. They had to go now.

Exiting the door, a squad of Stormtroopers mixed with two Deathtroopers was between them and the end of the corridor, before the U-Wing’s compartment. “It’s them! Blast them!” One trooper called out before another flurry of magenta and orange-red laser fire came soaring down the corridor right at Cassian as he attempted to leave. 

“Watch out!” Mara called, pulling him back into the room and to the floor. “I’ll handle these,” she told the breathless and still reeling captain. 

From her cloak, she pulled the hilt of something Cassian and Juno both had never seen before in their lives, but knew all too well, and were astounded as to how she had stolen it from the Program. It was the all too fabled hilt of a lightsaber, either constructed for Palpatine’s New Order or stolen from the corpse of a Jedi who had fallen over eighteen years ago. It was an actual lightsaber, and it was in Mara’s hands. Cassian could not believe his eyes as she pressed the button that activated the blade, and a beautiful and splendid purple beam of laser came from the end of the hilt. It was marvelous, exactly as the stunned captain had read before in story books. 

Then with the flourish and vigor of what Cassian imagined a Jedi Knight to be, Mara tossed herself into the corridor and began to deflect and meet bolt after bolt with the purple of her lightsaber. Like a true Jedi, she deflected all of them, clearing the gaggle of troopers out one by one until they charged upon her and she met them. However, unlike a Jedi, she began to cut them down one by one, disarming them quite literally and otherwise severing pieces off them off of their bodies until they were all dead. After seconds of mild slaughter that both Cassian and Juno admittedly saw slashes of the famed Darth Vader in, the corridor end was clear and they were a go to escape. And they had too all too quickly as Cassian heard more footsteps come from the stairwell. 

“Go now!” He shouted at Juno and Mara, the former shooting out the window at the end of the corridor and seeing the face of her bought Toydarian open the door to the U-Wing. One by one they all piled in just as the Deathtroopers made it up the stairs and began to fire at the craft, the deflector shields held fast until they whisked away and into the sky, TIE Fighters swarming after them as they did. 

Cassian quickly got into one of the cockpit chairs and plugged himself into the desk via the combat communication headphones. He had to be quick if they were going to escape being shot down by the two fighter craft now directly on their tail. “Come on baby hold together for a few seconds,” he muttered to the craft and to himself. 

Juno quickly kisses Mara on her lips and joined him in the copilot’s chair, plugging herself in too. “What are you doing?” Cassian asked her rapidly as he took control from the astromech in the back flying the big shuttle. 

“Give me control I’m a better pilot, you get the jump coordinates ready and prepare the jump to lightspeed now Captain,” Eclipse ordered him with a boldness in her Imperial accent. He even complied, giving her access to the flight controls and allowing her to take them through some wild maneuvers as they climbed into the upper atmosphere. “Come on Ander how long?!” Juno yelled as they climbed higher and higher, dodging green lasers from the chasing fighters the whole while. And if there was something Cassian hated even more than her right now it was working under pressure. But still, he punched in the coordinates for Yavin as fast as his hands and mind would allow him. “Cassian now!” Juno roared into his ear as the light blue of the atmosphere dissipated and dissolved into the blackness of space, with Star Destroyers before them and another squad of TIE Fighters heading right towards them. 

“Now!” Cassian yelled back in his exotic voice and Juno slammed forward the hyperspace control lever and they quickly blasted forward into the tunnel of lightspeed, away from the hornet’s nest and to relative safety. For the time being. 

In Thrawn’s central chamber the alert came in the form of an Ensign handing him the report from the two Star Destroyers in orbit that witnessed the U-Wing jump away from their turbolasers. Needless to say, Thrawn’s hair rippled as he steamed with anger and annoyance that the malcontent of his soldiers and ships would cost him again.

And then he read the section of the report that referenced ‘lightsaber wounds on dead troopers’ and it all clicked in his mind. 

He looked up and to the holo of the planet that was levitating above his desk, not Fest anymore, he had changed it to Coruscant to witness the escape of Fulcrum and Eclipse, and now to his knowledge one more Rebel whom she had smuggled and hidden on the planet. How could he have been so blind?

“And now I finally have you too, Mara Jade,” he told to himself, bringing up her fair face with ginger hair on the holo. “Let the game of cat and mouse finally commence. Myself, versus you, Fulcrum, and Juno Eclipse…

“I highly anticipate the dramatic conclusion, and I’m sure you all do too. Let the best win.”

To Be Continued…


	3. To Give Means To Chase Across The Galaxy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As Cassian and crew all reel back from their daring escape from Coruscant, Grand Admiral Thrawn is thrown into the firing line that is Governor Wilhuff Tarkin's shooting range, only Director Krennic starts the habit of sticking his nose into unwelcome places. The Director of the mysterious Stardust Project makes a rival in both Tarkin and Thrawn as the Chiss and old Human strike up an attack plan to not only capture Fulcrum, destroy Juno and Mara but also plan the downfall of Krennic himself. 
> 
> Meanwhile Juno finally comes clean with Mara to Cassian about why she needed such help in escaping Coruscant as the crew set a course to Corulag. But little do they know Thrawn knows exactly where they're headed and why. 
> 
> And back at the Yavin Base, General Hera Syndulla learns of Thrawn's involvement and rustles up and attack squad to intercept Thrawn as he does the same to Captain Andor...

Krennic exited the office of Governor Tarkin, his Coruscant field office to see the blue pale skin and the blistering red eyes of Grand Admiral Thrawn waiting to enter himself. Or rather s Krennic thought, soon to be demoted or killed Grand Admiral Thrawn. He had struck out, not only losing Juno Eclipse a second time but also losing Fulcrum as well. 

Tarkin was about to flay him alive like speeltongue with a vibroknife, and even Thrawn knew that. In fact, the blue-skinned alien overmind had to count himself lucky that Lord Vader was not in this meeting. 

However, Krennic was someone he could do without. 

“We will see you now Grand Admiral,” Krennic informed the Chiss, a smile on his weasel-like face as he smiled at the second man in white. The man who had just given Juno Eclipse to the Rebellion. Only it was far worse than that to Thrawn and he was so very lucky more that Tarkin and Krennic had no idea of the tertiary prize Fulcrum had made off with. Mara Jade, and a purple lightsaber. Perhaps Krennic would even cry at the knowledge that one of his sought after kyber crystals was now in the hands of a renegade Sith Acolyte on the run with her ex-officer girlfriend headed to… 

“Corulag, Governor. They are currently headed to Corulag. Eclipse and Fulcrum aboard that U-Wing,” Thrawn reported to Tarkin and less, in fact not at all to Krennic who was seated right next to him. The Director was boiling under his brittle and superficial skin. He had worked so hard to be on par with if not superseding Tarkin at this point and Thrawn was completely disregarding him. Thrawn, who was an alien, never mind the rank he was a stinking alien. 

Tarkin’s again, and in Krennic’s eyes decaying face was pressed, and poised and flattened with all manner of pompous gases on the inside. He was pristine in his grey uniform and rack of blue and red squares that told all of his rank, not to mention his slicked back balding of hair that looked like a dozen finely combed fibres of razor wire one could easily use to garrote another with. And Grand Moff Tarkin was very much like that, surgical, clinical, very professional in every single endeavour he undertook, and at the moment the lesser officer in the white uniform with the musk of the Core Worlds and the estranged accent of the Mid Rim Director Krennic knew that Tarkin’s current project was ascertaining command of the Weapon he was developing. 

In a sudden moment, the blue eyes, stone cold, iced over with a feint that was the realisation that Krennic knew Tarkin had already come to. What if Juno knew about the Weapon?

“And why do you suspect that Eclipse would take Fulcrum to her homeworld instead of making right for the Rebel Base? Grand Admiral?” Governor Tarkin asked the Chiss, his lips fat and pressed together, barely moving at all and his voice a steely slash of a finely folded letter-opener with the twang and easing of his pompous accent. The same as Juno’s, the one very quickly becoming labelled as ‘Imperial’. It was hard to think the word ‘Imperial’ could be linked to an accent, but it was, and the only person in the room who was not conforming precisely to it was Orson Krennic. His was a more of a common tongue of the Mid and Outer Rim, and he detested it. 

Thrawn straightened himself and pressed his heels together, the sheen of his black boots so perfectly offset by the black iron of the flooring of the conference room Tarkin as hijacked for this secret meeting. “Because the data Juno Eclipse acquired from us was not only uploaded off the world to her own private server, but it is also in a format only translatable by a KX-Series Imperial Droid,” he reported. “Juno has one at her own estate on Corulag.”

“A Security Droid can only translate the code? Why would she download the information in such a form anyway?” Krennic asked rather incredulously, failing to see why Juno would be so careless and needing to fly across the galaxy to get a droid anyway. 

Thrawn looked back to him with a smug grin on his face. “It was my doing Director. My forcing her hand. I knew she had one of the newer models at her apartment on Corulag and have thus forced her there where my Deathtroopers - and soon I will too - are heading to intercept her aboard Star Destroyer.”

“Careful Thrawn. You may have full authority on this chase of Juno Eclipse but that authority does not ascend to redistribution of the Imperial Navy simply to ascertain her,” Wilhuff Tarkin said, leaning down over his desk with his fingers interlocked and his hands in the shape and cross section of a pyramid. Thrawn was overstepping his bounds, as Krennic was doing so more and more every single day to keep the good friend of Emperor’s off of his sweating back. Whereas Krennic was scared of losing power, Thrawn was doing something far more cunning. He was trying to outplay his way away from Coruscant without winning or losing. Winning for an alien in terms of court was impossible, eventually, Palpatine would simply cast him aside and Thrawn knew that, whereas losing was also just as hard for a man like him. 

All he had to do was capture or kill Eclipse, then deliver Fulcrum to the Capital, wipe Mara Jade off of the face of reality so that no one ever knew she existed and then Thrawn would be stationed back in the Outer Rim, blamed for the mess in the first place. All he had to do was capture the U-Wing, and as he looked at Tarkin, the old man knew that two Star Destroyers were the beginning of what the Grand Admiral would do to achieve his end goal. 

With Krennic in the room, Thrawn would fire the superlaser of his prototype before letting Juno and Fulcrum escape his warpath. Thrawn was relatively unstoppable… But so was Tarkin. 

‘Unstoppable force meeting an immovable object’ Krennic though. 

Before either officer could say another word the doors departed, sliding sideways and open to reveal one of Krennic’s aides, with the Stardust Project Logo on his uniform. That meant he was from Eadu, the Director’s secret research installation, Thrawn had learned all this all too well. Again with mild deduction. “Director Krennic! Sir, a message for you from Doctor Erso,” the aide wheezed at Krennic on the high desk of the blackened steel room which felt more like a cage. Thrawn smiled, excellent, without Krennic here as a stooge for Tarkin, Thrawn’s mere power projection would allow him to leave and head for Corulag. Against the U-Wing he would be there with time to spare and enough of it to set a trap for Juno, Mara and this Fulcrum. Another spider’s web. 

“Galen? Of course, I’m coming now.”

“He’s in your private quarters sir, Deathtroopers have him under guard and surveillance,” the aide continued, stepping outside to allow Krennic to rush out also. 

Thrawn looked to Tarkin, his red eyes bolded again by his confidence and power projection. He often didn’t like playing the game of internal politics and etiquette the Imperial Naval Gentry had made for themselves, but then there were times like these where he loved it. His signature scheming grin took shape, with blue lips against his pale Chiss skin. He was more a liking to a snake in Tarkin’s withered eyes, less like a spider as others had referred him to. But nevertheless, he was effective indeed. 

“Grand Admiral,” Tarkin stated just before Thrawn turned to leave for The Chimaera. “When you find Juno please kill her on sight, no need to extraction just destroy her. She knows too much about the Project. As for Fulcrum, Lord Vader as requested you deliver him to Mustafar… And as for Miss Jade…”

‘How did he know about her?’ Thrawn thought his own internal alarm ringing. 

“The Emperor has expressed that you terminate with most extreme prejudice. He does not want a fibre of hair left on her corpse is that clear?” Tarkin finished, somehow not utterly murdering Thrawn for her escape and defection in the first place. 

Thrawn hummed, bowed and replied with; “Most certainly Governor,” before leaving for his ship. 

Cassian sat back in his seat, finally trying to stop his shaking, how trembling his wrist were when he looked down at his hands. That was mostly certainly not how he expected that mission to go, at least, not with the back of his U-Wing containing a redhead with a lightsaber, an astromech that was mostly grumpy, more like Chopper than anyone else, and a Toydarian who he did not know. He was about ready to give up and ask for them to return to Yavin, the poor Captain needed a hot soak and a debriefing and then at least a week of leave after the day he had had. After another mission too, he was so overworked. But it was a time of cold war, and he was needed, the bets in the Rebel business. 

“Well, you can forget everything about those Imperial Slugs, I told you I’d outrun them,” Juno told him before getting up from the co-pilot seat and heading aft as Cassian fiddled with his aching hands and wrists in the pilot’s chair. No one said anything to Juno. “Don’t everybody thank me all at once,” she grumbled at the lack of thanks heading her way. 

Mara shifted seats and wrapped her arms around Juno’s neck, kissing her cheek and purring. “Thanks, hon. You saved our lives.”

“He’s the one that came for us and got us off of Coruscant baby. We’re going to be safe now, which reminds me,” Juno trailed off, getting up again and pulling the pistol from her hip holster. Cassian saw her prime a bolt in the chamber with a flick of her thumb as she was heading to the Toydarian who was shaking himself in the back of the ship. 

“Juno what are you doing?” Cassian asked, knowing all too well what she was doing. 

With a single shot from her blaster pistol, the Toydarian fell from his light levitation dead on the floor of the U-Wing in mid-flight to Corulag with a smoking hole of a red laser in the back of his neck. Cassian didn’t say anything, he knew why Juno had done it, there was no way they could have trusted him, other than the fact that she had bought his loyalty. The Imperials could have easily have bought him back twice as bad, and they would know the three fugitives and the astromech were now headed right for Corulag. How badly Cassian wanted to instead head to Yavin. However Mara looked at her a little shocked, her fiery red eyebrows raised and incredulously looking at her girlfriend’s blue. 

Juno sat her pistol back onto the comm desk station, sitting at it with Kayeight wheeling himself forward to perch next to Cassian with the autopilot taking them through hyperspace to Corulag. And still, Juno had told none of them why they were detouring and not heading right to Yavin to end this already crazy day. 

“So,” Cassian broke the intrepid silence following the straight up and glossed over execution of the Toydarian, which Cassian would have repeated if it were him. But from the look on Mara’s face, he would never tell her that. “Do you want to tell myself or your girlfriend why you’re keeping us in danger of being caught by the Empire out in space as opposed to letting me take us to the Base?” Cassian asked, putting more blame on Juno than what was probably necessary. He was just too tired and wanted this mission to end already. Another leg did not sound promising. 

Juno stared at him as if he had just called her stupid or something equally as insulting. She was stunned he was so ungrateful considering what she had in conjunction to Mara Jade, a now rebel Sith Acolyte from Palpatine’s most secretive of operations on Prefsbelt. 

“Do you even have any idea why I called you to Coruscant Cassian?” Juno counter asked, leaning in her chair and glaring at him with angered iceberg eyes. He was playing anger out of ignorance and, being gay at the time of the Empire, it made her simmer with bile. 

Cassian shrugged and looked back in his chair into the spiralling and psychedelic tunnel of hyperspace that always mellowed him out. He needed mellow right now to relax him because he could only guess that as soon as they landed on Corulag there would drop a Star Destroyer out of hyperspace and they would all be arrested. Or more likely he would be arrested and Juno and Mara would be shot around the side of some chemical bath sheds. “Quite frankly I don’t care Eclipse. I just want to get this over, I’m not a man who asks questions.”

Mara turned him in the chair with what little manipulation of the force she could muster. Acolytes were trained to only use and tap into small amounts of the Dark Side, not enough to a be a threat to the Emperor. 

“Thanks, hon. Because you’ll want to find out what I have Captain Andor,” Juno told him ominously. “I have information about a top secret conditioning and training program being run by the Empire on Prefsbelt to turn normal Stormtroopers into the ultimate pacification units. Capable of matching a Rebel Squad, one soldier to seven.”

That took Cassian’s attention right away, and he turned to give Juno his undivided attention, shocked at the numbers she spat at him. “What the hell are you talking about? How is this possible?” He asked her, getting up even with his aching body from the past week and now today of running for his life from the Empire. And now this had dropped onto his lap like a sack of grenades. This was getting worse and worse. 

Juno pulled out a small holoprojector from her back pocket and Mara moved seats, as they made a small circle of the three of them plus Kayeight. Out from the projector popped a small and miniature model of what Juno was talking about. 

It measured roughly eight feet in eight, was black, or lavish from the readout, with a shoulder mounted rocket pack and two deployable stun batons from the wrist gauntlets. Some of the units would fight with some seriously damaging rifles as Cassian saw from the accompanying blaster. And as he saw the face, he saw the same mask roughly that was slapped on almost every single member of the non-standard member of the Imperial Ground Armies. 

“What the hell are they?” Cassian asked the girlfriends. 

“They’re called Purge Troopers, and if we don’t stop this project before it takes off of the ground at Prefsbelt, then the Rebellion isn’t going to stand a chance at taking any planet back from the Empire. And without planets, all the Empire will have to do is wait until we fight away all our resources Captain Andor,” Mara Jade told him with sad and defeated eyes of green in a flat face. “Do you see now why we needed you? Fulcrum.”

Captain Draven stood up from the listening station with such a force he nearly split the whole thing in half. The listening report had come in from Coruscant and word of Cassian and Juno’s explosive getaway with Mara Jade, Kayeight and a terrified Toydarian had come in over the wire. Not exactly the report Draven was hoping for. He stormed out of the hub room of the Yavin base and headed right for Mon Mothma’s chamber, slamming his fist on the steel beam support of the open door before excusing himself in, mid-meeting with Senator Bail Organa and General Hera Syndulla too. 

“A word please Senator Mothma,” he told her rather than ask her, and she nodded, knowing exactly what he wanted. 

It was superseded by over four minutes of yelling from Draven, with Hera and Bail still standing out of the door, rubbing foreheads and silently cursing the Captain for how high his voice was raised. They too knew exactly what he was angry about, and Bail was inclined to side with him; Cassian and Eclipse had practically declared war on the Core for the Rebellion and in the process made the entire Alliance look like a band of terrorists and insurrectionists and anarchists. All for what only right now Cassian, Juno and Mara knew and they were about half way across the galaxy headed for the remote and backwater Core World of Corulag. 

General Dodonna soon made his own appearance, his beard prickly and finely combed, however, the abundance of white stained hair on the ageing head was rather the opposite, rather withered and looking like it had been set on a window sill in the sun for hours. “I take it he’s been informed of Coruscant?” He asked Bail and Hera, the former simply stroked his brow all the more as Hera took the attention. 

“Yes, and he’s been in there shouting at her for the past couple of minutes,” General Syndulla informed General Dodonna, her own slightly ageing face tired of standing and wishing to save her woman in arms.

“He is right, though. Captain Andor and Miss Eclipse have put the entire Capital on red alert and put my own and Mon Mothma’s situation in the Imperial Senate at risk! Not to mention we all look like terrorists now. She blew up a work shuttle depot!” Senator Organa barked, his beard swinging. It truthful to say that the past eighteen years since the fall of the Old Republic and the Jedi had taken their toll on Bail Organa especially harshly. He was looking bad, to say the least. 

“Well, it looks like we may have worse issues that Coruscant feeling some heat for now. They’re on their way to Corulag.”

“And how do you know that?” Hera asked Dodonna, considering what was happening inside the conference room, Draven didn’t seem to know and he was the current acting chair of Rebel Intelligence. Although they were still grooming Cassian to take up administration. 

Dodonna shook his head and passed Hera the manuscript of the transmission the listening desk had received just after Draven had nearly crushed it as he left it. “We’ve spotted two Imperial Star Destroyed headed right to intercept them, and from what we have from Coruscant, it looks like your old friend is aboard the second,” he spoke to Hera, his own face glum with the knowledge as she read it and suddenly seethed at the name. 

“The Chimaera,” General Syndulla spat through gritted teeth. 

“And who does that ship belong to General Syndulla?” Bail asked, obviously missing the point which had General Dodonna so meek and glum, and Hera so angry. No, more than angry, furious. “Hera? What old friend?”

She looked up from the manuscript. “Grand Admiral Thrawn,” she spat before walking off. “Chopper! Get me Rex, Zeb, Wedge and Hobbie. We’re taking The Ghost to Corulag, and then get me a squad of B-Wings up and cleared for Star Destroyer Assault please General. 

“It’s time I take that bastard down once and for all for what he did to Kanan.”

To Be Continued…


	4. A Fly Stepping Into A Spider's Parlour

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thrawn waits at Corulag for all the players of his small game to step into his web once again, and this time he plans to eradicate them all from the board, only with the help of Hera Syndulla and her attack force, the Rebels manage to repel Thrawn's attempt at destruction. Cassian, Juno and Mara head down to the surface to uncover Juno's stashed ship and translation droid, all vital to dismantling the Dark Purge Project. Only as they do, Darth Vader enters the fray, on orders to destroy them all...

“So, the reason again why we’re walking into an obvious trap?” Cassian asked as he scoured through the datapad the Toydarian had had on him. To his massive dismay the alien had sent a fairly stupidly uncoded transmission back to the Capital the moment they had entered hyperspace. ‘Corulag, be quick’ it had said, and there was no doubt in any of their minds as to who it had gone to.

Thrawn, and by Cassian’s estimates with some data from Kayeight sitting rather nervously between Mara’s legs. She was trying to calm the poor robot down as Cassian and Juno worked on the ship. It was nearly time before they would arrive at Corulag. Juno was begging the stars to have Thrawn behind them and not in front. 

“He’ll have Star Destroyers you know, and more TIE Fighters than he needs to destroy this ship. We won’t make it to the surface with that kind of firepower on our asses,” Cassian told her, being a withered veteran of trying to blast his way through an Imperial blockade in a U-Wing. First the TIEs would rip the wings off and then they’d target the thrusters. If the four of them were lucky they’d be spaced and clouds of red before the entire chassis of the carrier exploded into a flurry of metallic debris. 

Juno tisked, looking at him and wondering just what was up his rear to make him so cynical. “Did you serve in the Clone Wars, Captain Andor?” 

“Yes, on the wrong side and saw too much to know this is a suicide mission Captain Eclipse.”

“Well belay that Cassian, because this data needs to get to the Alliance if we’re going to have any hope of winning a ground war in this Rebellion,” the blonde with the Imperial accent barked at Cassian, like the true officer she had been masquerading around as for years. “All we need to do is make it to the surface,” she muttered under her breath after the latin male of the Outer Rim straightened in his chair and coughed. It had been a rather long time since he had been ordered about with the same conviction as Juno had. 

Before Cassian could raise his question, Mara poked her ginger haired face with freckles and deep emerald eyes between them, looking out into the spectacularness of hyperspace. Any minute they’d be coming out of it. “Yes, but how the hell are we getting off Corulag?” She asked her girlfriend, not entirely siding with her or Cassian. Mara just wanted to get to a safe world and put the lightsaber at her belt away for good. 

“Don’t worry about that, I may have stolen a small prototype from Lord Vader a while ago that still flies classified Imperial colours. All we have to do is make it to the surface,” Juno told them again, which made Cassian rethink his question from before. 

“Who in the hell is ‘Lord Vader?’”

At the same time, The Ghost was just entering the Corulag system, all functioning drives optimal and the whole rig fully crewed by General Hera Syndulla, Chopper, Garazeb Orrelios, Wedge Antilles and Hobbie Klivian of Blue Squadron. The desperate General had snuck everything she could and then some for her daring attack on Thrawn as he travelled to Corulag to intercept the band of Rebels headed by Cassian. She knew their safety was imperative, and that Thrawn’s destruction would be a most crippling blow to the Imperial Admiralty, and the sweet vengeance she would receive from blowing him up would finally bring Hera some semblance of peace for how he dispatched Kanan Jarrus. 

“How are we looking Zeb?” Hera asked her copilot as Wedge and Hobbie both fiddled with instruments in the back of the cockpit, ensuring the ship was in more of a fighting state to take on what they had estimated would be two massive Imperial-Class Star Destroyers. One for Thrawn himself, The Chimaera and one helmed by his subordinate, Captain Paelleon and used as transport for an occupation or pacification force, The Adjudicator. Both were beasts of war and with than enough firepower needed to blast Hera and her crew out of the sky. 

That was why she had brought a squadron’s worth of B-Wings, and A-Wings. Certainly, they would be enough to bring the beasts down. 

Zeb checked the readouts of the ship, it was looking good, very good, and it would need to if they were about to assault two Star Destroyers with just two squads of fighters. The B-Wings were designed for starship assault, but the Empire made it’s cruisers for utter annihilation, they spared nothing in the way of starfighter defense. And with added TIE Fighters, this would not be easy at all. Hera was biting her lip. “She looks good Hera, and we’re getting close to Corulag,” Zeb reported, a little apprehensive himself, even unease working into his voice as he spoke. His eyes trembled a little in his skull, the whites of them a little fluctuating, and his breath as unregulated. 

She looked to him, and then back out to the blue of hyperspace, and then turned to Wedge and Hobbie. “Alright, nice. Boys get in the back and on those guns. Wedge you’re in the Phantom, I know it’s not an X-Wing but it’s all we have,” Hera ordered him, with that same mothering tone in her voice as she had always had with Ezra, Sabine and with anyone else aboard her ship. The years as an officer in the Alliance had still not worn her mothering tone away and Zeb was grateful, especially after Thrawn had murdered Kanan. 

“Not a problem General, good luck out there,” Wedge reported back as he left aftwards to the Phantom with Hobbie in front of him. 

“Don’t launch until I give you word!” Hera called back like a mother to her children and Zeb smiled. “What?” She asked him. 

“Nothin’, I’m just glad that Thrawn didn’t destroy Hera too when he did Kanan,” Zeb told her, honest and with his heart on his sleeve. 

“Yeah,” Hera said softly and absently as she looked at her console and at the instruments reading all different things. “Me too.”

Thrawn stood at the helm of The Chimaera with a smile already across his blue skin with the officers and alike around the bridge getting both beasts ready for a massive battle in the space above Corulag, and he knew exactly how it was going to play out, he had run it all in his head. First Hera Syndulla’s attack squad would exit hyperspace and they would clash, with Thrawn using the experimentally new TIE Strikers to bring down her use of B-Wings, as they were best suited for cruiser assault. The A-Wings would fail to match the Strikers in speed and they would fall victim to the main anti-fighter batteries of the Destroyers. With them dispatched, The Ghost would be all alone and either destroyed or forced to land on the planet. While at the same time Fulcrum and his U-Wing would exit hyperspace just as the battle raged and a small team of Elite TIEs would blast them out of the sky. While Fulcrum would be killed, Thrawn would plead the case to Lord Vader that it was either that or allow him and Eclipse to get away with the data translator down below. 

The Grand Admiral knew all about the ship Juno had smuggled out of Prefsbelt months ago. Experimental design and still tagged as flying Imperial colours, the only reason he could detect it was because of the cloaking device. 

“Have you found it yet Captain?” Thrawn asked his right-hand man aboard the other Star Destroyer. Captain Paelleon. The man who had been with Thrawn all the way after he had killed Kanan Jarrus at Lothal. 

“Negative sir. Scans can find no trace of The Rogue Shadow. It is still hidden on the surface,” he reported, over comlink. Thrawn kicked at the floor of his own bridge and scuffed the tip of his boot a little in anger. If Juno got to that ship, there would be no way of tracing her through a hyperspace jump, and Thrawn knew exactly where she would fly - The Hidden Rebel Base. The Chiss Grand Admiral chewed on the inside of his mouth, a common habit he had long thought he had eradicated upon his ascension to the Admiralty. Now it was coming back to express his extreme urk about the situation which continued to constrict him. If Juno made it to surface, he would lose her, until she would assault the Research Hub on Prefsbelt, and was an outcome Thrawn did not want, for it would most certainly rope Lord Vader in on a more personal level, and then Thrawn would be lucky indeed to escape this ensnarement with more than his head still attached to his body. 

He moved to the side, looking out into the emptiness of space that was about to be filled with more and more small ships. “Ready the main batteries Paelleon and prepare for a combat stance. Do not let Fulcrum and Eclipse reach the planet, or it shall be your head on the platter to Lord Vader,” Thrawn barked down the comlink, his own private line to his lackey, and on the other ship, the thought of having himself served to the Sith Enforcer made Paelleon weak at the knees. 

Darth Vader entered his own private chamber aboard The Executor, the darkened steel making his communication hub appear black, of course from behind his mask, within the artificial eyes he knew where everything was. He had been living aboard the ship for a few years, as was the plan until Krennic came through with his beloved Death Star project. Then Vader would be stationed there, as would a large force from the Fleet. With Tarkin in command as well. 

But Palpatine had demanded Vader make contact, especially after the little chaos on Coruscant and then the ensuing madness with which Grand Admiral Thrawn had used to make his departure from the system. Now Vader was left to pick up the pieces like the lapdog of the Emperor he really was. The face of the tyranny of the Empire and the sword that delivered its justice. Darth Vader was by every meaning of the word, an enforcer, and the internal struggle was worn deep inside his coat, in heart as the Emperor pulled at his leash every day, passing it off to anyone. Including Wilhuff Tarkin. 

Admiral Ozzel, another member of the Admiralty had conveyed the message that Palpatine wished to speak with Vader, and now, in the black chamber of his private quarters, if one could call them that, Vader was answering his master’s call. 

“You called for me, my Master,” Vader answered as soon as Palpatine’s decrepit face took form out of the blue of a hologram transmission. There he was, as bold as brass before Vader. 

“Lord Vader,” Palpatine mouthed at the small and bowing, black form of his servant. “There has been a great disturbance in the Force,” he reported, old and frail, however still building and rebuilding his powers in the Dark Side. The Clone Wars had drained his exponentially, now he was growing stronger, as the true Dark Lord of the Sith. “We have a problem, Lord Vader.”

Vader’s masked face rose to meet the gaze of his master, unknowing as to what he was referring to. Vader had long stopped sensing Jedi, with the Inquisition out there mopping up the rest, the only one that he knew about still possibly alive was Ezra Bridger, after his master was destroyed at the hands of Thrawn no less during the attempted liberation of Lothal. The images and experiences of Ezra were still in Vader’s mind. How the young boy would have made a fine apprentice for Vader, how he would have been so skilled in the Dark Side. And how well Vader could have manipulated him to turn, especially after their tiny bout on Lothal years ago. How Vader had put the boy’s own lightsaber to his throat and told him how Kanan had betrayed him. And now look at where Jarrus was. Dead. 

“Whoever they are, they will be destroyed Master,” Vader responded to his master, with a slight bile in his charred throat over the thought of another Jedi surfacing. 

“Be mindful Lord Vader. You will need to be in order to defeat her.”

“Who is she, Lord?” Vader asked, not even sensing the woman Palpatine was talking about. It could not be Ahsoka, she was dead, Vader has made sure of that himself on Malachor V. 

“Jade… Mara Jade, a member of my Acolyte Program on Prefsbelt IV. I was grooming her to lead the Inquisition as we move to crush the Rebellion. Only she has betrayed me and stolen the Lightsaber of Mace Windu,” Palpatine told his servant, who said nothing and only listened at the mention of the Jedi who had sparked the betrayal of Vader to his old Order and the shift in the Clone Wars so many years ago. “As of now she travels with Juno Eclipse to Corulag. You are to head there Lord Vader, alone, and destroy her before she can escape the clutches of Grand Admiral Thrawn once again,” he told Vader, his face showing no emotion at all. 

And Vader simply bowed once again. “It is my honour, my Master.”

“Cassian we’re coming up on Corulag,” Juno informed the main pilot cautiously and in all honesty a little scared herself, worse so than Mara looked in the back as she cuddled Kayeight a little closer to her core. She may have had an aptitude for lightsaber combat and ground assault, but Mara Jade hated being in the middle of a space battle more than anything. “Hon, it’s going to be okay!” Juno shouted to her before looking back to Cassian. “Tell me it’s going to be okay Andor!”

The Outer Rim Rebel Intelligence Agent looked at her with suspicion. He wanted to either slap her across her cheek for asking such a stupid thing. They would need more luck on their side than ever if they were going to make it to the surface of the planet. And she had the gall to make him tell her, tell them both, that it was going to be okay without Cassian even looking at the full extent of what they were up against. 

Captain Andor only hoped that the Force was on his side in this instance and that in the moments of them exiting hyperspace, he would see a proud Corellian Corvette or a Mon Calamari Cruiser under the command of Admiral Raddus.

But that would require the Force, and Cassian had thought to himself that the Force had left the Galaxy long ago. 

“We’re going to get to that planet alive, all of us, and we’re going to get your droid, Juno Eclipse, and then we’re heading back to Yavin, and we’re going to destroy this Dark Purge Project, for the Alliance,” Cassian told Mara, and Juno both, defiantly with a shaking series of breaths. He was defiant in his words, which contained a hint of leadership even within them, but even he was talking up a storm of what he assumed was to be false promises. He was convinced the ship would be destroyed seconds after seeing Corulag. 

“We’re dropping out of hyperspace,” Juno reported with an optimistic smile, and pulled back on the oversized lever, and they dropped out of the tunnel of blue, the stars becoming lines and then eventually dots once again. But all was cast under the massive orb that was Corulag, and in between that and them was the shadows of two Star Destroyers, currently waving off an assault by an attack squad of Rebel starfighters. 

Cassian reeled in his seat, as the scanners quickly got to work identifying just who was in charge of this random cover that had fallen upon him. “What the hell is this?” Juno asked, more to the entirety of the space between them and the assault, but before Cassian could hazard a guess, the proximity alert began to whirl all over. 

“I don’t know but we have incoming,” he told Juno under an intense breath and switched over full manual flight control to his station. 

“I take it that’s bad right?” Mara asked, a little dumbfounded, she knew very little about space combat. 

Juno looked at her own console and eventually found the swivel turret controls, there was no way Cassian would not be flying an ungunned ship, even on a small informant run to the Core. No Rebel Intelligence Agent would be so stupid. Upon activating the gun had strapped herself in her harness, as did the pilot and then she turned to Mara sitting comfortably if not a little shaken in the backseat. “Strap yourself in hon, this is going to get a little rough,” she instructed her girlfriend and took control of the back facing laser cannon. 

“Have you operated a cannon like that before?” Cassian asked Juno in his hurried and still intense whisper as he began to make a few evasive manoeuvres. From the scanner, he could see they were being chased by two TIE Bombers and an Interceptor. While ahead he could make out the two bent wings of the Empire’s newest twin ion engines monstrosity. The TIE Striker. 

Captain Eclipse looked at the gun controls and the small targeting computer frame that came from behind the chair to her eye. It looked completely alien to her, and she had only a small guess as to how to fire effectively. “No, no I haven’t,” she told him in complete honesty. 

He looked at her, a little more annoyed as she told him. He’d give anything for an actual Rebel Copilot now, for they might actually keep him alive. “Then it’s going be more than a little rough,” he grunted and put his eyes back on the battle raging before him. “Unlocking the S-Foils. Mara, get on that communication console and make contact with whoever’s on the wireless,” he shouted back at the redhead, and she quickly tossed herself across the shaking hulk of the U-Wing to the station he referred to and quickly ran through all the Rebel wavelengths. She had not operated a system like it before but, by using what little of the force she had knowledge and control of, quickly sussed it out. 

“That Interceptor is hammering the rear deflector shield, one more direct hit on the back quarter and we’re done for Cassian,” Juno spat in his ear, trying to shoot down the bastard peppering them with green cannon fire from all four of his laser cannons. 

“Angle the deflector shield, and actually shoot him please Juno,” Cassian barked at her back as he flew a little more wildly, Mara making contact behind him. There came another small crash behind him, and a thud. The whole ship shook from the clash of laser fire and a small explosion as Juno shot a homing missile. Cassian looked alarmed, and then back to Juno. “Great, well we can still outmanoeuvre them!” He yelled and pushed the nose down, sending them hurdling directly over a Star Destroyer’s hull. 

If he couldn’t take them out with this ship, he’d have the Imperials do his work for him. 

“Mayday Mayday this is Black-One calling any Rebel Command ships in the area, repeat this is Black-One calling any Rebel Command ships can anyone hear me?” Mara Jade’s small and static voice came through to The Ghost and the radio aboard. Hera took to answering it in the back of the cockpit as the whole freight shifted and bulked to one side and the other, taking a lot of fire from Thrawn’s Star Destroyer. Zeb took full control of the ship and flew her just outside of the firing line of the cruiser. 

The green Twi’lek was slammed into the comm station seat and scrambled to get her headset on by the time Zeb fully held the reigns of her ship. 

“Black-One this is General Hera Syndulla of The Ghost, go ahead Black-One,” Hera responded to no reply but a muffling and a faint shouting of words she couldn’t hear over commotion and explosions. “Black-One respond!” She barked. 

This time, Cassian responded, juggling this over several other tasks he was focussing on to keep them alive across space. “General! This is Captain Cassian Andor of Rebel Intelligence! We need assistance to the surface of the planet! Captain Eclipse has a translation device down there vital for information she has on project codenamed Dark Purge!”

“Dark Purge?” Hera reiterated, not having any idea what Cassian was talking about. “Captain please send your clearance codes immediately,” she ordered him, but Cassian grunted, pulling off more and more evasive manoeuvres as he dodged more and more turbolaser fire in his bucket of bolts U-Wing. 

“General there is no time! We need fighter escort! We have TIEs on our tail! I even have Captain Eclipse aboard and another Rebel Intelligence Asset!”

It took Hera a good couple of seconds to reach a decision, whether or not to believe Cassian, or the man she assumed to be Cassian Andor, but in the end she did, and soon rerouted herself and Biggs Darklighter in his A-Wing as fighter escort to Cassian’s U-Wing. Biggs quickly diverted from tailing a squadron to protect a B-Wing, his friend crashing in a blazing inferno as he switched targets but it was a tough call from his General. As soon as he came into view Biggs fired off his afterburners and closed the gap between himself and the pesky Interceptor. With a quick flourish of his dual mounted laser cannons, the cockpit of the TIE blazed with magenta and soon exploded in a flash, taking the whole chassis apart with it. The TIE Bombers took a more concentrated blast, but after a second Biggs had torn through the left one as Wedge aboard The Ghost shredded through the starboard wing of the remainder and then it too exploded in a crumbling flash of debris. 

Hera returned to her pilot’s seat and as she did she looked out to the bridge of the second Star Destroyer, the one on the right hand side of the conflict, and from the top of the bridge tower she made out one of the deflector shield generators explode in a massive flame. She cried out, in glee and joy, hoping that was The Chimaera but it was too much. Either way the personnel would be evacuating and soon enough Thrawn would be forced to pull out. 

Grand Admiral Thrawn was not like Grand Moff Tarkin, he was not unflinching in the face of adversity. He would retreat. Tarkin never would. 

This was the first step into dismantling Thrawn, overcoming the odds and proving his deductions incorrect, getting him on his edge to where he would make a fatal mistake and then Hera would finally kill him. And she and the U-Wing descended into the skies of Corulag, to the major population center and to where Juno had stashed her ship and her droid. But before they did, another, a third Star Destroyer exited out of hyperspace, prompting Hera to order her attack squads to retreat back to base. 

“Lord Vader, we have scanned the area and found three ships heading to the surface,” Admiral Ozzel reported from the bridge of the Super Star Destroyer, The Executor, new and well furnished, massive and menacing. “A U-Wing, an A-Wing and a Rebel ship coming up as The Ghost,” the Admiral finished promptly, his ginger beard twitching before him. 

The foul and disheartening sound of Darth Vader’s breathing rang out before he answered his subordinate. “Alert Grand Admiral Thrawn, tell him to wait for me in my chamber, Admiral Ozzel,” Vader spoke hard and like iron. 

“And what about the Rebels my lord?”

Another harsh and cold breath left the respirator of the Sith enforcer and he looked out of the viewports and at the afternoon skies of Corulag, where Fulcrum, Juno Eclipse, Mara Jade, and now Hera Syndulla were headed. Vader had a most brutal plan, and he would dispatch the redheaded Inquisition Acolyte himself, just as The Emperor had instructed him, and a little for himself. The twisted machine of a man he was. 

He turned to Ozzel and stared at the humble Admiral through the red viziers of his horrid black mask. “Prepare my shuttle for immediate departure for the surface Admiral.”

“Yes Lord Vader, and with a Deathtrooper escort?” Ozzel asked as Vader looked away. 

“I will not need them…”

To Be Continued...


	5. Strength Often Forged Through Vigorous Defeat, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian, Juno, and Mara close in on Juno's homeworld apartment and her droid needed to decode the secret data, but a familiar Sith comes knocking to do battle...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I recommend listening to 'Hope' from the Rogue One Soundtrack until Vader starts fighting, then 'Anakin vs. Obi-Wan' until the end for a better Star Wars feel to the whole chapter.

Cassian, Juno, and Mara all floored it up the stairs, the entire building slowly losing power as some horrific presence followed them up every flight, like a withering plague. Mara could sense the intense anger. 

It was a Sith. Or the Sith. 

She could feel the darkness coming for her, for Juno and Cassian too and it was right behind them, pursuing them all throughout the building as they raced along the corridors and up the stairs. The turbolifts had gone out of action and all the lights were soon following. The entire complex was slowly losing power the more and more they ran to Juno’s room, whatever was chasing them was fast and coming directly for them. It would not stop. 

“I have a bad feeling about this,” Cassian panted as they charged along the corridor, with the feeling that Juno and Mara both had lingering in the back of his neck, that something or someone was coming for them. Something powerful and something not to be messed with, and something very fueled on the hate of all things. 

Only Mara Jade knew exactly what was after them, and pulled out the hilt of the stolen lightsaber to be ready. She was the only one who could halt him and buy them time. But they actually made it to the bulkhead door leading to Juno’s old apartment, the droid they needed inside and the lock responding to her identification card. The Imperials had not yet locked her out and she thanked the Force. 

But when Juno came to open the door, it would not budge. It was forced shut, and as Cassian attempted to help, the whole outline became crushed from nothing and they were sealed out. “What the hell is this?” Cassian asked, wondering what was going on around him. It did not take Mara’s fearful explanation for the captain to guess it was the Force itself, and someone controlling it. They were indeed being followed by a Sith, and Juno and Mara both knew exactly which one. 

The power cut got to them and soon the lights were out, the whole corridor enveloped in darkness with the three of them halted at the far end by the crushed doorframe. Soon they heard the opening of the bulkhead they had come through and the entering of footsteps, hard and heavy. 

Mara did not need to reach out with what little of the Force she could control to know who was there. It was very obvious, even Juno knew. 

He breathed, hard and metallic, with the respiration system in his silent suit sounding like a wretch of some damned ghost. The wail of a screaming banshee that split the air and sent terrified shivers down all of their spines. Cassian felt sick, Juno felt on edge, and Mara Jade was very very afraid. For she would have to fight him now, and he would beat her so brutally she doubted if her next of kin would be able to identify her after he was done. 

Darth Vader activated the blood red blade of his lightsaber and breathed once again without saying a word to Mara, who stared him down out of sheer horror, not bravery. 

“Mara no! He’ll kill you!” Juno cried as Cassian held her back, the fur rim of the hood of his jacket running across his cold and trembling cheek. Even he was terrified of the masked and hulking man with the red lightsaber. He had no idea who the Sith was, but he was afraid, more so than what he had been on Fest during the Clone Wars. 

Vader was very much that, the embodiment of a childhood fear, like the ripper or worse. Vader could actually make sure one’s next of kin could not identify them, and the rumours Juno and Mara had heard, of what he had done to the Jedi, were gut-wrenching. 

“Someone has to be a Jedi and fight this monster for what he’s helped done to the galaxy,” Mara spat back at her girlfriend taking her hilt and bringing out the cold purple of the blade. The purple that was looking at if Vader was freezing it with his stare. 

The Dark Lord breathed a louder breath and began to walk towards them with the same ironclad footsteps. “The Force is with you, Mara Jade… 

“...But you are not a Jedi yet.”

“Juno take Cassian and get in the apartment through the window, I’ll hold him off,” Mara ordered her girlfriend once more with a more stern tone and raising the stolen lightsaber in her possession to match the red glow coming from Vader’s. She had to be brave, to push the bravery through her severe fear, the horrific fear she had burning in her. And sure enough, her sudden sternness and the ominous arrogance and air of superiority from Vader made Juno tug on Cassian’s arm, the Captain was saying nothing. She was staring him down, and Vader’s black shadowy figure gave no sign of weakness, only strength, as she had been told to believe. He was the Emperor’s weapon and Right Hand, and only now did Mara Jade, and Juno Eclipse, see why. He was so flawlessly one with the Dark Side, completely invigorated by the prospect of battle. Darth Vader wanted to fight her, and they would clash. As the sound of a side door closed, Mara tensed her feet and the grip she had on the hilt of her lightsaber. 

Mara turned a little to the side as Vader took the sound of the door as his signal to walk forward and bear down upon her. He was so much taller than her, a clear foot certainly, but then again the Emperor had created Vader, or so the rumours went, from a Jedi who fell in the Clone Wars and made the man into a machine the way he wanted to. Of course, Darth Vader was far more machine rather than man, twisted and evil.

“You have left the Emperor most… Displeased, Mara Jade,” Vader finally spoke, his voice like a steel knife being wedged deep into her spine, and making her shiver with the excessive coldness. She did shiver and regain the stance as she walked back, her grip tightening again until she feared she would draw blood from her grasp. 

Vader kept coming for her, incredibly slowly down the corridor with the hum of his red lightsaber filling the ambience as his breath did so too. That sound, the suction of air and the frail and menacing release of it. Like something cold and dark and not even alive but bordering on the verge of non-existence. Whatever the Emperor did to the poor man inside the chassis of the brutal suit, he had done it out of greed and ambition, not mercy. 

Mara Jade spat a little in her mouth. She really wanted to run, to flee and give chase to Darth Vader, but the stories had told her of those who tried that too. They did not last long, and before they knew it, he was somehow right there behind them, driving his red blade deep into them. She would not risk it. 

Instead, for the first real time in her life, she would stand her ground against the Empire and fight for her very life, even if it was now as good as forfeit. 

“I guess he should have kept better tabs on me and this lightsaber. Instead of the Grand Inquisitor and Seventh Sister, and even that buffoon Fifth Brother,” Mara taunted, trying to make her body a little bigger than she really was. It was no use. Vader had dealt and been done with them years ago, not caring a wink that Kanan Jarrus and Ahsoka Tano had slain them on Malachor V. 

The man that was Darth Vader almost seemed to snigger under the veil that was his horrific mask, the mask that had become a symbol of pure terror in the face of tumultuous insurrection all over Imperial territories. Him, Tarkin’s old and melting face, Krennic’s cane and black Deathtroopers that suddenly all the high ranking officers had, and Thrawn’s red piercing eyes. They were the inner circle of goons that scared and terrified systems into submission. But Mara, no longer bowed. 

“You could have led the Inquisition today Miss Jade, helping secure the Empire in the face of these Rebels, and now you shall fall along with them!” Vader roared before finally lunging at her with the red blade of his lightsaber coming down upon her hard. 

Mara Jade sidestepped for her life, allowing the sabre to cut cleanly through the wall before she instantly counterattacked into it as Darth Vader brought it back up to lock with the purple of hers. They were engaged now, there was no turning back, and she was against him. Something Mara was praying would end swiftly. He was far more powerful than she and Mara could feel the strength through the grip Vader had on his lightsaber. 

“You will experience the true nature of the Force, Miss Jade,” Vader snarled before relinquishing their blades and coming at her again with a sideways swing of his. Mara did her best, pathetically parrying the blow off to the side and then coming back with a swing of her own. Vader met the lacklustre attack with his blade and reposted with a mighty lunge. Mara ducked and came back to clash blades again, they met several times before Mara saw she could evade more of his swings than she could block. Where Vader made up for in overwhelming force, Mara could counter with speed and agility. She only hoped she would have enough stamina to keep it up. If Vader grabbed her or cornered her, she was finished. 

Juno and Cassian sprinted down another corridor, quickly rounding a corner with all haste and no foresight whatsoever. They ran right into a squad of both Deathtroopers, a band of Infantry Cassian had never seen before, and the Chiss himself; Grand Admiral Thrawn. And even Thrawn fired rounds from the EW-11 blaster in his hands at them as they instantly reverted and hid behind the corner. 

“Pleasure to see you again Captain Eclipse,” Thrawn bellowed down the corridor to Juno, who gritted her teeth at the sound of his slithering serpent’s voice. She hated his tone, his stature, how pristine he stood with the blaster in one hand, yet she knew his combat skills were expertly tuned and crafted over years of putting himself through rigorous training exercises against his ‘Rook’ Combat Droids aboard The Chimaera. She despised all that he was. 

“I take it that’s Thrawn?” Cassian asked quickly from behind Juno. The rimmer was still getting up to speed with how the situation was, and it was now looking like he would do that from inside an Imperial Holding Cell. 

Juno gave him nothing but a stern look of her flared eyes and a grunt of affirmation, her fury bleeding through her pursed lips. 

“I do believe that your service to the Emperor is not longer required Miss Eclipse,” Thrawn yelled again with a smile across his mouth, his lips tinted the blue of his skin only slightly darker for complexion. His raven dark hair was pulled back and his red eyes were a little deeper and redder than when he was in the core. He wanted this game of cat and mouse over and done with, and he alone had the pleasure of cutting Juno’s life off like a thread of string. He turned to his entourage of mixed troopers, to a Deathtrooper Sergeant and one of the other variety in a shorter mask and less armoured carapace. A sort of lightweight Deathtrooper, only Juno knew what he was. “Please dispose of Captain Eclipse and bring me Fulcrum.”

Cassian’s heart froze like a lump of carbonite in his chest and he tensed. How did Thrawn know he was Fulcrum? In fact, how did Thrawn know all that he did? Thinking back all the links in the chain of events that had started a galactic day ago ran through Cassian’s mind. And the stunning fact was that Thrawn knew everything. He had only not acquired on slice of information and that he got from the Toydarian, the one Juno melted. 

Thrawn had countered and followed them every single step of the way since Cassian had met Juno on Coruscant. 

“There’s too many to blast our way through,” Juno whispered as the two troopers made their way towards the corner, with three more as backup.

Cassian Andor pulled a little canister from his utility belt and quickly attached a small device to the barrel of his customisable blaster pistol. He was certainly not ending this mission here. Even if it meant the end of the line, there was no way he was not going down without the biggest fight of his life. “Maybe, and maybe not, cover your eyes and ears Juno.”

“What the stars?” Juno cried before Cassian primed the canister and tossed it around the corner of the corridor. 

The troopers scrammed and Captain Andor heard them all hit the deck, but not shield themselves from the sheer power and light that came from his little detonator, a nine-banger, and before Juno could recuperate, Cassian was firing from behind her, blasting Deathtroopers in the face. They soon got up, however, and quickly huddled around Thrawn to protect him while backing up down the corridor to a defendable position. And before too long, with about four or five bodies along the floor, they were all at a stalemate and with no way out. And Thrawn snarled at Cassian across the hall. A worthy opponent he was proving to be. 

Vader kicked Mara to the door, quickly rushing her in a dazed stance and piercing his brutal red lightsaber right through her shoulder. She screamed with a banshee’s wail at the searing pain ravaging down her arm and collarbone. It was excruciating beyond comprehension. But why hadn’t he killed her? He could have done it so easily, why stab her shoulder?

Nevertheless, it did not dampen the pain she was screaming from. And Vader’s red eyes and the grill of his mask’s rebreathing mouthpiece was suddenly right in her face. “The Inquisition has trained you well Mara, but only your anger can save you now,” he breathed into her, pulling out his sabre and stepping back to allow her to get up, the hole in her shoulder oozing with blood and pouring down the now wrecked sleeve of her arm. She was already in pieces, he could kill her easily. She’d need to call the Force now more than ever. 

“Unleash your emotion, only your hatred can destroy me!” He roared, and she snapped a little, holding her purple sabre with both hands and charging at him, striking his blade hard, with all the strength she had and her arm flaring with such pain she felt her mind pop nerves. It was awful and yet the pain catalysed her emotionally. 

Mara’s mind sharpened in an instant and she felt her rage flow through her body, aiding her strength as she made contact with the Force around her, what she could. She called to it, pleaded with it, and Mara Jade focused all her energy into her hands and arms, she would survive, for as long she could. The woman only hoped that Cassian and Juno would come through that door behind her and save her from Vader as he stood taller still. 

“You want anger?” Mara asked rhetorically, finding strength and life in her emotion and shaky control of the Force. “Then let’s get angry.”

“Indeed,” Vader breathed again, seeing his little test of her succeed. And at the same time, Mara slightly figured it out. He was judging her abilities for himself, as the ways of the Sith compelled him to, he was looking for her to join him, and the moment she resisted, only then would she die to him. But Mara would not die here, she would not allow herself. 

The Deathtroopers and other infantry continued to hurl a hail mary wall of red and magenta and orange coloured blaster bolts down the corridor directly at Cassian and Juno, who had both gained no ground at all in the moments since the push. Thrawn was still breathing and still putting himself in the fray, even to the point of hurling his own flurry of bolts down range to try and snipe his blonde and troublesome foe. 

“I have waited a long time for this moment, Juno! The time where I finally wipe you from the Emperor’s trouble manifest!” He taunted again before firing another couple of shots. The Deathtroopers intervened, keeping him back and out of harm's way as Cassian, crouched and smart, sniped one of the unidentified troopers in the leg, and then again in his gut, rapid and fast.

Again did Juno grit her teeth and peer around the corner, only to fall into Thrawn’s trap, he leant out too and fired right at her, nabbing the blonde in her shoulder. In pain and anguish, Juno fell to the floor, backwards and into cover. Cassian held her up, yelling her name and covering the wound. There were no bacta pads on them, she was doomed, but the shot had only grazed her arm. “Juno!” He yelled and Thrawn chuckled a little in his cover. 

“Fulcrum… Surrender now and give yourself to me. That is the only way this will end… Cassian Andor,” Thrawn slithered in the silence as the troopers stopped their siege. 

Another lump formed in Cassian’s stomach. “How do you know who I am?!” He barked back down the corridor as Juno was panting and trying to overcome the pain in her arm, it was done, and so was she, for the time. It was all on Cassian now, and he was outnumbered by he didn’t know how many. It was looking as bleak as ever. 

They clashed again and again, and with the pain seeping through the mental barrier Mara had made for herself she was beginning to crumble before Vader. Her swings and slashes grew weaker and weaker and Vader was beginning to overpower her. It was growing feeble.

But there was still fight left in her. And Vader wanted to crush it. “Perhaps you are not as strong as I had foreseen.”

He slashed at her, and Mara jumped, holding to one of the now exposed tubes of the ceiling, some kind of ventilation tool or vent, and she dodged his attack. Quickly she crawled over him and landed behind him, parrying off his next swing a little boldly and standing tall with her arm bleeding profusely. 

“Impressive.”

He came at her again, a downward slash with a massive amount of strength behind it, but Mara backflipped away, with a massive spike of pain from the hole in her shoulder she stumbled a little but managed, to land and channel the Force into her hands. With a push, she fired a wave of energy at the monstrous Vader and pushing him back with the Force. But Vader’s breathing got a little louder, and Mara’s faux bravado soon turned to dread. 

“All too easy,” she heard Vader breathe, before walking back towards her in a posthumous strut. With a raised hand he called upon the Force himself, right from the bowels of the Dark Side and before Mara could move she was immobilised and choking, unable to breathe, unable to speak, not able to do anything. 

Vader was choking her, with the Force, and he was about to kill her. This was the end for Mara Jade.

To Be Continued...


	6. Strength Often Forged Through Vigorous Defeat, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The desperate Rebels continue their push towards finding the droid needed to decode the secret data, but the Imperials prove to be too much for Juno and Cassian as Mara and Vader continue to square off...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This Chapter contains heavy, heavy feels I promise. As with the previous Chapter I recommended music to help with mood, this Chapter I highly encourage you all to listen to 'Your Father Would Have Been Proud' from the Rogue One Soundtrack as soon as you get to Cassian and Juno in this chapter. 
> 
> Then listen to 'The Rebel Fleet/End Title' from the Episode V Soundtrack for the final scene when Vader and Thrawn are aboard The Executor.

Mara was choking, her life slipping before her very feeling as the whole world and galaxy around her blackened and went numb, even white, her vision slipping. And all she could hear coming closer and closer through the dust and smoke that filled the corridor was the foul and menacing breathing of Lord Vader combined with his clad iron footprints. 

She was dead, her mission failed and her girlfriend alone, and it was all over, without Mara, Juno and Cassian would die too, Vader would find them and cut them down before him and the Dark Purge project would continue and thrive, and the Rebel Alliance would die. The Empire would win, Darth Vader would win, and by extension, Emperor Palpatine himself would win. Her escape from the Inquisition and theft of Mace Windu’s lightsaber was all for nothing, absolutely nothing. The darkness was surrounding her completely. All she could do was try to slither out some last words to Vader, and die a warrior’s death to his hand like Ahsoka Tano. 

“You’ll destroy each other,” Mara choked, holding the visage of nothingness that was the Force wrapped around her throat, killing her completely. “Palpatine, and you. It’s… The way of the Sith,” she edged out through the crushing pressure killing and stifling her breaths and respiratory system. Her lungs were bursting before her. 

Vader’s wheezing and tumultuously ravage breathing noise hissed from his ghastly robotic suit and core, being the ultimate thing Mara would hear. He stepped a little closer and stopped right in front of her, standing tall and victorious, the winner of their little unfair contest. 

“The Emperor will be defeated, by me, but not with you… Never,” Lord Vader groaned and tightened his grip a little more, deciding she was not worth her trouble, and killing her… Only there came a noise from behind Mara’s suspended body, and the door began to creak. 

The tall man in black let Mara go, dropping her unconscious to the floor but certainly alive as the door began to heat up and well from a charged explosion, and before he knew it, the whole thing was ablaze with flame, and exploded spectacularly just as the Dark Lord ignited his lightsaber again, prepared to deflect blaster bolts. 

“Go, go, go! Shoot him down!” The voice of Hera Syndulla shouted as the Rebels unleashed a hail of magenta and red blaster bolts down the corridor, with precision aim careful enough not to hit Mara on the floor. “Zeb! Grab her now!” The Twi’lek general boomed as she stepped over an already dead Rebel Soldier, shot with a deflected blast bolt from Vader’s lightsaber as the hulking Sith Lord shifted back and back, down the deep and dark corridor with flashes of red and magenta light sparking all over. Hera was resolute, determined to get Mara out and eyed down Vader the whole time as she shot at him with her rifle, all while Zeb meandered down over the bodies to grab the VIP. His Bo-rifle was out too and he was giving Vader as much suppressive fire as he could while grabbing Mara. It was pure chaos but they were close, and more troopers were falling down dead with smoking holes in their bodies from Vader’s expert deflection. 

“Zeb!” Hera roared behind her as she stepped to the front of the firing squad to pepper Vader with sharp orange bolts from her rifle. “I said get her out! Now!” She thundered again, inspiring Garazeb to move and retreat back through the incursion hole that was the door. “Troopers set the damn shield grate now and retreat back to the ship!” The General ordered and behind her, one trooper with a minigun took up position behind her as Zeb got to safety with Mara. 

Then Hera herself slowly retreated, slowly enough to allow more and more troopers to get behind the frame of the door and spray more laser fire down range at Vader, keeping him suppressed where he was so he could not kill Hera. She retreated down the hallway and passed the frame, tapping the trooper waiting on his shock and clad white helmet to activate their trap and before they knew it, the door was blocked by a red laser gate. And Vader was trapped. 

“There, that oughta hold him for a while,” General Syndulla sniffed as she wiped her brow, with Vader getting all too close to the gate, even testing it with his sabre. There was no way through, not even with the blade. “Good to see you again Darth.”

Vader’s breath was still audible and some of the troopers wretched when they heard it, some even taking Mara on a stretcher and retreating to the exit point. 

“You are all traitors to the Empire, and shall soon meet the same fate as Miss Jade,” Vader threatened with his red lightsaber still drawn and his towering stature bearing over Hera. She was not afraid, never of Vader, not after their encounter on Lothal years ago. 

Hera stood right up close to the gate, looking up and into Vader’s red eyes, peering seemingly into the mask. “Yeah, well the Empire can go kiss my ass. Enjoy your stay on Corulag… Lord Vader.”

Cassian fired his own barrage down range at Thrawn and his entrenched forces of Deathtroopers and what Juno had informed Cassian were Storm Commandos. He didn’t really care what they were, they were elusive to kill and fired with an accuracy that almost all Stormtroopers lacked. They were bastards to the Captain and he was rapidly getting annoyed of all their tenacity to stay alive no matter how much he and Juno shot down range. The tanned rimmer from Fest swapped magazines and handed Juno a spare, grimacing and how much was left on his utility belt. “I’m down to my least mag, and I’m out of detonators,” Cassian breathed hastily, his breath white hot and his heart thumping in his chest. It was getting close now and he could tell that Thrawn himself would make a push with the Deathtroopers. He did not want to die here, not now, not after all this day had thrown at him and with so much left to do. If Cassian and Juno died now, the Dark Purge Project would wipe out the Rebellion. He would not allow that to happen. 

Juno looked him, her blonde hair darkened by the dim light and the stress in her head, and her blue eyes shining like pretty sapphires. She was breathing faster than he, stood up tall and closest to the tip of the corner. She was afraid, he could tell by the glimmer of fear in her eyes, and he felt sorry for her. She had not asked for this. To have worked so hard in the hands of the Empire and escaping Coruscant only to be shot like a wild Nexu from Fellucia. 

“Cassian, it’s not looking good,” Juno squeaked, feeling the heat from another blaster bolt hitting the corner behind her. 

What could he do besides look at her muted?

Cassian took a deep breath, waited and leant around to shoot a Storm Commando in the chest as he peered to do the same to them. The man fell backwards, right at Thrawn’s feet with a grunt, causing the Chiss to grit his teeth and snarl. Quickly he peered and managed to get a shot off, which barrel down space and made thick and burning contact with Cassian’s shoulder. He screamed in pain, falling back behind the corner as Juno held him, pressuring the wound. She yelled his name in duress and Thrawn smiled. He was about to win where Vader had failed, and two out of three fugitives were more that a victory to the Chiss, he’d hunt Mara down soon enough, but Juno and Fulcrum were precious heads to own. 

“Juno,” Cassian gasped, his wound scorching down his chest in excruciating pain. They were both in pain, immense pain, and it hurt more than anything. Cassian had been shot a few times, but only grazes and misses, searing through his clothing and across his arms. This was a direct shot at him and it had pained him more than anything. It was going to leave the worst scar should he survive. “Juno I don’t want to die now. I don’t want to die yet, or here.”

The blonde Captain looked into his eyes, seeing his regret and his worry about dying there and then, and he saw her fear of the same, of leaving Mara even if she was still alive. They both then, in that moment, if anything else, shared one thing, and found a common place in one thing. They both did not want to die to Thrawn, on Corulag, in some dark hallway like animals to a fascist, and extreme regime that some man had found through the ashes of the Clone Wars. 

“Oh Cassian, why must we fight for the Galaxy’s liberty? Why do they have to do this? The Empire? Why Cassian?” Juno wept, her eyes glassy and filled with tears daring to break loose as Cassian kneeled beside her, his fight extinguished and his mental stream preparing to stop.

He took a breath, his shoulder bubbling pain, and hearing the footsteps of what he assumed were Deathtroopers coming to collect him and murder Juno in the corridor. “Juno… I don’t know why they do this. Why the Empire insist on having so much control over people’s lives… But I know one thing Juno, even if we die now…”

Again she looked at him, and he at her, as the footsteps got closer and closer, slowly, with the sound of a rifle changing magazines and another being set to stun. This was it, completely. It was over, for both of them. 

“I know that one day, we’ll beat them, Juno. There is hope. There’s always hope,” he whispered, taking her hand in his and looking deep into her eyes, then resting his head on her shoulder. If she was going to die, then he’d be with her until the end. “May the Force be with you Juno Eclipse…”

She closed her eyes, accepting the Deathtroopers coming to extinguish her. “And may the Force be with you Cassian Andor.”

The footsteps stopped, and rifles were drawn, aimed threateningly at Juno. She didn’t bother to open her eyes. She knew what was coming. 

When Cassian opened his eyes he was aboard the Mon Calamari Star Cruiser under Admiral Raddus, alone and on the bed of a medical bay, with his shoulder patched up as much as it could with a bacta pad. Several lines were drawn and strung up to his arms to keep him sedated and hydrated, and by the looks of himself as he drowsily sat up he’d been under for at least a few hours. And it was a miracle he was still breathing, and not aboard an Imperial-Class Star Destroyer being prepared for interrogation by two medical droids. He was in the hands of Alliance crew, on an Alliance ship and he was alive, breathing, and going to be okay. No doubt they were heading back to Yavin at that very moment. 

He sat back, even daring to smile at his luck, at something that had saved him from death or imprisonment. He was alive. 

But Cassian turned to his left, at the medical table next to him, which had a body on it, one with blonde hair and with blue eyes, and the body was female.

It was Juno Eclipse, and she was dead. Shot in the middle of her forehead with one single laser bolt. She was dead, and he was alive. 

Vader stared out of the front window panel of his flagship, the Super Star Destroyer, a prototype, what was named The Executor, simply looking down at the planet of Corulag, and Thrawn was next to him, looking a little less illustrious and confident than before they had both visited the planet. Much had been lost and wasted there and now; time, resources, troops and Juno Eclipse as well, not to mention the Imperial Droid the Rebels needed by the designation of K-2SO. And now, with the Rebels heading back to their secret base with the precious cargo intact as well as Cassian Andor and Mara Jade alive and well, Vader was out of patience. 

“I will find them, Lord Vader, you have my word on that, the Emperor will not see the foundry on Prefsbelt destroyed,” Thrawn assured Vader, who simply stood enigmatic and silent aside from the foul and menacing breathing of his automatic respiratory system. 

Lord Vader was out of patience, especially with Thrawn, after three failures now he would no longer see another chance from the blackly clad Sith Lord. 

With a grip of his fingers, as if Vader were holding something a visage field wrapped itself around Thrawn’s throat, and he began to choke completely before Vader. “I have no more time or patience for your failure Grand Admiral Thrawn… And neither does the Emperor. You were trusted to eradicate all three of the Rebels and it took you this long to correct your mistake of Juno Eclipse,” Vader riddled off in his bass and echoing tone, swelling with the anger of a Sith. He was furious, even if Juno was now dead. There was still the growing problem of Cassian Andor, who Vader now knew of as Fulcrum, and Mara Jade, who would most certainly find strength in the Force through her anger over Juno’s death. Vader knew that the next time they met, she would be a rival to him, and would be able to fight him possibly. Thanks to the Rebels, there was another Force-user in the Galaxy who could stand up to the threat Vader and the Inquisition posed to them. 

“The Dark Purge project is now at full risk and Mara Jade will only grow stronger in The Force, thus, I have taken matters into my own hands as to find them,” Vader alluded and let Thrawn go, letting him cough and splutter all over the floor of the command deck, as one more man joined them at the window. 

He was shorter than both of them, but his footsteps ringing on the durasteel hinted at the twang of Mandalorian Iron in the composite of the armour, and the green and white colour that Thrawn saw as he stood up showed him who the man was. There was only one man, one Bounty Hunter in the galaxy that wore Mandalorian Armour anymore, only one who would be inclined to take a job from the Empire. 

“Boba Fett, we meet again,” Thrawn spoke harshly. 

“Pleasure,” he spat through his father’s helmet, before turning to Darth Vader as the Sith enforcer did the same and looked at Boba with the red of his artificial eyes. He was pleased to see the Bounty Hunter, and even more pleased he had come. “So, Lord Vader, what is this job? I had to turn down the capture of Liana Hallik for this.”

Vader sternly looked down at Boba. “You will be well compensated, Bounty Hunter. Should you find a man known as Cassian Andor…”

To Be Continued...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry for any and all feels anyone experienced. Needless to say I was crying like a baby for most of this Chapter. In the end I actually had to toss a coin on whether or not to kill Juno, and the coin dictated she needed to die.


	7. The Sorry Passing of Time and Life

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian and the Rebels return to Yavin after what many but he would call a successful mission to Coruscant and Corulag, but not Cassian. He is a broken man after the death of Juno Eclipse and can barely look at Mara again. Injured and depressed, he heads to the medical bay to meet a face that inspires hope within everyone...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You could say that while this chapter is up directly after I killed Juno Eclipse, it is in small part my dedication to Carrie Fisher, that's why the Leia scene (yes there is a Leia scene) might read a little off. It's meant to be me having my own little moment for Carrie. She was the most amazing woman in the Galaxy, and I'm still not over her death, I don't think I will be even after Episode VIII. 
> 
> So this is kinda for her, and also for Juno, because I did not plan to kill her off, I planned to kill Mara off, but the coin toss I made told me otherwise. And now the narrative changes a little, like a Bioware game, we'll see the continuation of Mara and her steps to become a better Force User. 
> 
> Oh and Leia will be sticking around into the finale, which is not that far away. I anticipate this story will be done on either Chapter 10 or 11.

‘Juno… Juno I don’t want to die now. I don’t want to die yet, or here…’ 

‘Oh Cassian, why must we have to fight for the Galaxy’s liberty? Why do they have to do this?The Empire? Why Cassian?’ 

He could not get her last words of his head the whole time from the moment he saw her lifeless body, with eyes closed and lips blue to the moment they touched down on Yavin 4 in the U-Wing mocked shuttle, and with Mara screaming from the open cargo hangar of The Ghost. He had not even looked at the captured Rogue Shadow there was no need. Cassian Andor just held his shoulder tightly, with his sprained arm in a cast dangling from his shoulder as he walked silently and slowly behind the stretcher carrying her body. 

There was no way in the world, in the whole stupid Universe that Cassian could look at Mara, especially as she screamed violently from the ship after him and after Juno, with General Syndulla and Colonel Orrelios having to hold her back with force. She was trying, clawing at them to get past and to run to her girlfriend’s dead body as two medics wheeled her into the main base. And never had Cassian Andor felt like more of a failure. Despite the mission being what would be later considered by the Rebel Brass as a success, it was nothing more than an ultimate failure to him. He had only known Juno for about a day, and already did he feel a closeness to her, being with her from the get-go on Coruscant, fighting with her non-stop from that point. He had given everything he had on Corulag, and she had given more than that all day to just try and survive and complete the mission, to get the droid, to get the data. She had been fighting for her life longer still before meeting Cassian, and it had all ended with her getting shot in the head in a dark corridor by an Imperial Deathtrooper, at the hands of Grand Admiral Thrawn. 

‘I don’t know why they do this Juno. Why the Empire insist on having so much control over people’s lives… But I know one day we’ll beat them, Juno… There is hope.’

Hope. He reigned through that word a lot on his way across the landing pad and to the medical bay. To him, it seemed that all hope had faded the moment he looked across and saw that Juno was gone. It seemed that there was not much left to fight for if he couldn’t protect a simple friend, a woman who had given her everything to just get some information because the Empire insisted on destroying liberty and freedom. 

If Cassian could not save Juno, then what hope did he have of saving anyone else? And what hope did the Alliance have in saving the entire Galaxy from the tyrannical Empire and their herald Palpatine? Hope was eroding fast, and Cassian had had enough.

Thrawn and Vader would not retreat, they would consolidate power and presence around whatever planet the Dark Purge Project was being completed on, and that would mean a full strike would have been issued. More then General Syndulla, they would need Admiral Raddus, or Ackbar, even General Dodonna’s fighter arsenal. But they would all want to speak to Cassian first, the entire Alliance Leadership would want to speak to him, to weigh the evidence and consider if it was worth it to attack the Empire again. Cassian didn’t even know if he would advise them to if it was worth losing so much to destroy one Project. 

There was a woman in the medical bay, rather short, shorter than Cassian, with lush cocoa coloured hair in two bunches on either side of her head, with a smiling, pure and beautiful face. She had to have been young, no older than at least seventeen, and she was so beautiful to Cassian, her smile lighting up the room and filling it with something he thought gone. Her eyes were like stars, burning so brightly in the cream and stained yellow of the temple room. 

Cassian had no idea who she was but the woman was so resolute and so beautiful, so pure and sparkling almost before him, he nearly thought he had died with Juno and gone to whatever was the next life. She was hope, in physical form. 

She was Princess Leia Organa. 

“Captain Andor, please sit down, I was told you’d been shot,” the Princess spoke, softly but also with signs of a hardiness and a fight that told Cassian that this woman was such a Rebel, as much as one as he, even if she looked like she had not been on what could be referred to as the front lines of the Rebellion. He did as she asked of him, and she peeled the bacta pad from his shoulder carefully, with the expression and nature of a fully qualified physician. She was tender and gentle and soft in all areas as she tended to him, propping him back a little and padding at the still bloodied wound with a pad. She brought forth a trolley, with forceps and more gauss. 

The Captain was so exhausted, even after blacking out and waking up on the Mon Calamari Star Cruiser, he didn’t even feel the pain coming from his butchered shoulder as she tried to remove the mangled flesh. “You’re very good at this,” he grunted, feeling a slight spike when she removed a fairly large chunk and instantly sprayed it with bacta and even a little kolto. 

The Princess looked up at him again and smiled, focused and determined on what she was doing. “I studied a lot on Alderaan, including advanced medicine. Can’t fight a Rebellion with injured agents,” she reported, a little twang of an attitude in her voice as she grinned. She thought he thought her a simple nurse, and from the way he was so casual with her, even taking his shirt and jacket off, he had no idea who she was. 

Only that she was the most beautiful woman in the Galaxy. 

“Alderaan?” Cassian double checked, thinking deeply through the exhaustion, distracted by the woman for a moment as he thought. Juno was still in his mind, as was the shootout in the corridor and Mara too. But this woman was so inspiring and admirable to him, he had to distract the trauma from Corulag with her. 

The woman hummed and smiled, hoping that his soldier brain would realise what prominent figure in the Alliance Leadership was from Alderaan. From there it would not be a grand step to figuring out that Leia was the daughter of Senator Bail Organa. But this was Cassian Andor, tired and bereft, and still panged with guilt over Juno. But his slight jump informed her he knew. 

“I see, well, it’s a pleasure to meet you Princess Organa,” Cassian sighed, slacking a little and sulking as she swapped at the carotid wound in his shoulder. He was missing a chunk, a large chunk of it, slipping down into his left breast. 

She stood, grabbed the gauss and wrapped the wound up tightly, tenderly and with all the care and attention she could but they did not say another word. Cassian had sunk into the dark recesses of his waking and wandering mind, thinking of his failure again and what might have happened to Mara now. Was she still flailing about in the landing pad? Or had she assaulted General Syndulla and Zeb already, earning her stay in the brig? Cassian didn’t know and in all of his false honesty, he didn’t want to. He wanted to get his wound finished, and sleep. He had quarters on base and prayed to the Force that Captain Draven would leave him well enough alone until he was rested. 

“I’m sorry about your friend. Captain Eclipse wasn’t she?” Leia asked from her knees. She was done wrapping up Cassian’s shoulder and was now checking the sprain on his arm, moving it and causing him no distress there at all. He had done far worse to his limbs and continued to serve on a mission. 

He looked at her a little condescendingly, faux of course, he still thought she was remarkable, and he knew of her now. Knew that Princess Leia Organa could fight, almost as good as Juno. She had good training in firearms as well as recon and scouting. She would be a valuable asset to have if she was allowed to serve. Cassian thought about asking her to come with him on the next mission, to shut down Dark Purge if he had clearance. But he thought it best to keep his mouth shut. 

“She was a good woman, Captain Andor. I’d worked with her on a few missions inside Coruscant. She was a… Very nice woman,” Leia told him, depressingly, but Cassian didn’t look at her. She’d done enough to raise his flattened spirit, but now she was not helping as much. 

He looked to his elbow. “You don’t need to worry about the arm, I’ve dealt with worse Princess. If it would be alright I’d prefer to take come bacta pads and some meds to my quarters so I can rest,” he suggested, getting up and off the table, performing a couple of stretches with his sprained arm and bracing through the mild pain. His shoulder felt as good as new, however. 

Leia frowned, grabbing what he required and slipping them into a small bag and handing it to him. “Cassian, it wasn’t your fault. And there’s still hope, I promise you. Get some sleep, and come and talk if you need anything else. Will you do that for me?”

He grunted again and feigned a small smile for her, it was the least he could do after seeing her and her inspiring him so much. “Of course, have a good day Your Highness,” he told her on the cusp of his smile and walked out of the med bay. Leia was left alone, in the haggard old ruins of Yavin 4, in the med bay on her own, feeling hope for the bereft Captain and pain for his fallen friend, but what more, Leia knew the Empire would bite back from this, and she only hoped that the crumbling group of Rebels could rally together, under their new Alliance. She hoped Mon Mothma had the strength and the will to press at the Empire and keep them from turning more soldiers into what Cassian had been turned into. 

She walked to the doorframe of the med bay and watched him walk through the parting crowds of Rebels into the small housing complex deep inside the temple and up into the higher echelons of the structure. He was the lowest ranking member of Rebel Intelligence to even have a small room to himself. 

“Princess Leia,” General Dodonna called from her side, making her slightly jump and acknowledge him. She bowed and hummed with her inspiring smile and he grinned back; Dodonna considered her a goddaughter and in truth, she was all to him except that. “Your father has asked you to join us for the Leadership meeting if you would.”

Leia smiled to herself, looking back at Cassian as he walked through the crowds some more, and then she returned her gaze to the General. “Of course General, let us go.”

Thrawn walked hastily down the corridor, yet another one, in the Imperial Palace on Coruscant, his personal squad of Deathtroopers at his back, three of them, with the fourth back aboard The Chimaera no doubt being commended for his murder of Juno Eclipse. Meanwhile, Thrawn was forced back to the capital to be judged by the highest of judiciaries this time. There would be no judgement from Wilhuff, nothing to spare him from Vader’s choking and no shield to guard him against Krennic’s egotistical buffoonery. 

He was to be audited by Emperor Palpatine himself, and that made Thrawn, for the first time in his career, actually scared to be a Chiss. 

Before he even got to the door of the corridor of the Throne Room, there was Orson, and Wilhuff waiting for him, no doubt Vader was inside already at his master’s side, and Royal Guards, clad in red were littering the hallways. It was busier than ever before, but Thrawn hadn’t been invited to the upper floors of the Imperial Pyramid all too often. Only one other time in his life had he, and that was when the Emperor had made him the first Grand Admiral of his species, in fact, the first of any other species other than human. 

“I should do best to wipe the smile off of your face Director Krennic,” Thrawn bellowed almost in his fury as he saw Orson smiling by the door. Both he and Tarkin were only there to witness the impending fall in his rank. 

Orson only looked all the smugger after that, he could tell his weaselling animosity was getting to the Grand Admiral, though for how much longer he kept that rank was a mystery to all but the Emperor. “I mean no harm Grand Admiral, merely wishing to congratulate your disposal of Captain Eclipse is all, however you famed loss of Fulcrum and Miss Jade will go down sourly with His Grace,” Krennic snarled, before spotting Tarkin’s eye of disapproval. Soon after staring down the old man he turned and left before outstaying his welcome, leaving the two superiors to themselves. 

“Governor Tarkin, forgive me but do you not have more important things to be doing than stalking my demise?” Thrawn asked Wilhuff as politely as he could word it. 

The wrinkled and elderly sage of an officer looked over Thrawn very astutely, carefully, up and down and not sure if he saw fear in the Chiss or very well preserved bravado, and his words were equally as enigmatic. Tarkin was seeing another side of Thrawn and he did not know if it had any place left indeed in the hierarchy of command. “Tell me, Grand Admiral, do you believe that the Emperor is about to demote you, or worse?” Tarkin asked, stone coldly. 

“I believe the Emperor is going to do what he sees best, and use me to whatever the best method of me is correct. If I had my way I would be heading to Prefsbelt to ensure that the Dark Purge Project is safeguarded and ready to expect a small Rebel Strike Force there within three days. That would be more than enough time to set an appropriate trap for Captain Andor and his comrades,” Thrawn reported, in his voice, his old voice, the one that could disassemble a Rebel Squadron by itself. The sociopathic voice of pure terror that had earned him renown in the Imperial Military and infamy among the Alliance. The voice that sounded like Grand Admiral Thrawn. 

Tarkin smiled and gestured to allow the Grand Admiral inside to the corridor that led to the Throne Room, with the old Governor placing his hand on Thrawn’s back. “Good, Grand Admiral,

“That was all I needed to hear…”

It was only a few hours after his shoulder being increasingly torn apart before Cassian was restlessly pacing around his quarters with his shirt draped over the door to the bathroom. His arm ached from the chunk of muscle and flesh missing from the top of his pectoral. It was dark, blackened by the lack of light from the lamp and isolated as the Captain finally got his day of rest. He had wanted it at the start of this mission, but Juno and her death now made it impossible for him to relax. 

Cassian still felt as if he had let her down by losing her, and he could not still think to imagine how distressed Mara was right now. He hadn’t seen her since her pushing past Hera and Zeb on the landing pad. 

There was nothing, nothing at all in the room that could distract Cassian from his thoughts. He never bothered to fill the thing with entertainment, he was hardly at the base for longer than three days and if he was, it was to fill in the rest of the Intelligence Department with Captain Draven. But now he wanted to distract himself, wanted to forget how he had let Juno die because he blacked out from the blood loss from his shoulder. Such a stupid mistake, he should have been more careful. If he had, Thrawn wouldn’t have shot him, and they would have him in binders now and sitting in a Rebel cell. 

In his sudden outrage, he threw his holocom at the door and dropped to his knees before the window, his fists covering his eyes and tears pulsing through them as he gritted his teeth and wept. He was so angry at himself, furious, blaming his own feebleness and wishing he could turn back time and save her. If anyone deserved to die it was him and not Juno, she was so driven, so in touch with the struggle, she was more human than he. 

She had a girlfriend, she had Mara, and Cassian had nothing. He should have died and not her, why was he so afraid of dying in that corridor? Why there? Why with her?

Cassian balled, screaming into the empty space of his room and flinging his fist across the air, making contact with the bed and denting the metal post he hit that hard. He was still furious. “Juno! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! It should have been me!” He cried out violently, shirtless and alone, even afraid of facing Mara now. How could he? She had tried to fight Darth Vader just to have them escape, and Juno had perished anyway. 

He stood up, trying to dry his tears, and thinking about what the next move might be because there was no way he’d let this cripple him, not at all. He would avenge Juno Eclipse and make sure her death was not some fickle or everyday thing. The Dark Purge would be destroyed, the whole project burnt to a crisp and forgotten. That would be his plan.

To make Thrawn regret the day he had his men kill Juno Eclipse. 

“Where’s the droid, Draven?” Cassian thundered to his fellow Rebel Intelligence Agent, but the man looked at Captain Andor as if the rimmer had dribbled all the way down his shirt. He was incredulous as to what Cassian was talking about. “The Imperial Unit from Corulag, I want access to it now, and I want all of Juno’s effects brought to the workshop before I get there. Where’s Mara Jade?”

Draven, who by the patch on his jacket had been promoted to General, looked at Cassian unimpressed and spoke down to him, handing his datapad to an aide. “She’s out in the forest… Cutting down trees with a stolen lightsaber.”

Thrawn and Tarkin left the Throne Room together, even shaking hands and smiling greedily. Whatever had gone on behind those closed doors with The Emperor and Lord Vader, Thrawn and Wilhuff and seemingly both prospered from brokered failure and a hasty alliance. They were up to something, and as Krennic passed the doorway at the end of the corridor, Tarkin looked and grinned, as did the Grand Admiral, certainly not demoted, but rather, looking as if he and the Governor were looking down from a position of higher power. 

“You have my sincere thanks, Governor Tarkin, and I hope that we can continue to work most harmoniously as we diverge into our own projects,” Thrawn slithered to the old Grand Moff, who was looking pumped up, pompous, and heavily flavourful. He looked to Orson as if he was about to start laughing as he and the grandiose Thrawn made their way down the hallway to the door. Whatever they were celebrating, it was nothing that Krennic could share or bask in. 

It looked, to him, dangerous. 

Tarkin did chuckle. “Nothing to mention Grand Admiral, I for one am hoping that with your word in the Admiralty, I shall have no more delays or trouble, in acquiring the command of the Stardust Project once construction is complete, as for your Dark Purge Project… I fear one the Rebels learn of its location on Prefsbelt, it may fall,” Tarkin discussed, a little queerly and oddly as if both he and the Chiss were fine with losing it. 

“Ah yes, Dark Purge, well I shall try my hardest to defend the facility, but I fear you may be correct. No matter, I shall be making a visit to Admiral Daala in the Maw Installation in the next few weeks with Pellaeon and I hear that Director Isard is most keen on inspecting the facility.”

Wilhuff coughed a little at the mention of both his not so secret lover Daala, and the Director of Imperial Intelligence, Ysanne Isard. “Unfortunately Director Isard is suffering from an attempted assassination out in the Mid Rim, and with Lord Vader acquiring the Bounty Hunter she was after, I fear this, Liana Hallik may actually kill her, she is an elusive one.”

Thrawn raised his eyebrow and spotted Orson. “Director Krennic, I believe you are on leave from the Stardust project for a few more days, perhaps you could aid Director Isard, I trust you and she are on good terms from your days of the Clone Wars?”

Krennic mumbled something by means of an affirmation but let slip a struggled confirmation.

“Good,” Tarkin smiled, less friendly than he was to Thrawn, and more intimidating as he usually was to Orson. The time for diplomacy between the two was fading, and as Tarkin’s oversight in Krennic’s pet project with Galen Erso had entered the final stages of construction, and now included Thrawn as well, it seemed that claws were about to be revealed. A bid for control was to once again take place between Orson and Wilhuff. But this time the old Governor had Thrawn in his back pocket, an unlikely ally to have once again. “I will oversee the preparations as the Stardust Project heads into the final stages of construction. There can be no further delays Director Krennic. The Emperor demands results… From all of us,” Tarkin plundered and stormed off with his own detail of Deathtroopers leaving Thrawn and Krennic alone, and the latter in the dark.

“If you’ll excuse me, Director, I must head to Prefsbelt, expecting another incursion. Give Ysanne my regards,” Thrawn too left Orson with his words, and rolled on down the corridor with his detail of men, his destination and plan in mind. 

The shape of the Admiralty was to soon change, and Thrawn would wither is as he always did, by blasting through more Rebels. As he enjoyed so.

To Be Continued...


	8. Next Move? Spring The Trap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Thrawn fills his right hand man, Captain Gilad Pellaeon about his motives and plan following his deal struck with Governor Tarkin and The Emperor himself while Cassian and Mara finally reconcile and deal with the emotion left after Juno's horrific death. And they finally reactivate the droid, K-2SO to learn the location of the Dark Purge Project. All that remains now is to strike at the heart of the Dark Purge and destroy it along with the data and prototypes, but Grand Admiral Thrawn will refuse to admit such an unnecessary defeat right away...

Gilad Pellaeon stepped onto the bridge of The Chimaera with a certain apprehension about himself, to the point where the wrinkles in his brow and the whiskers of his greying moustache twitched before him.

The bridge looked very different to how he had seen it before, and the increase in what he saw as rookie staff and ensigns, volunteers and conscripts looked less and less attractive than a skeleton crew. The skeleton crew the Imperial-Class Star Destroyer had been running on since the Lothal days. It was a vegetable patch to him and to see his stern and brisk Grand Admiral at the helm and sanctioning it was most disturbing. Gilad was perturbed. As he approached Thrawn, his superior and the man he had served under for years now, in many ways the only thing Pellaeon had close to a friend, multiple young men and women bumped into him. 

One even forgot to notice the rack of blue and red squares pinned to the Captain’s breast, placed promptly and pressed. “Ensign!” Gilad thundered as the young man, tanned and with short and frizzy black hair, tried to escape the Captain’s hammer gaze. “This is a military vessel, either work around your commanding officers as any crewmate worth a damn would do, apologise and salute him should you bump into him, or you’ll find yourself heading back down to Coruscant through reentry!” Pellaeon boomed. The young boy stumbled an apology, terrified and shot up a salute as he stood straight with almost crying eyes. Following, Gilad made the rest of the way across the bridge and to stand at Thrawn’s left side, as his hand. 

“A stern approach, Captain,” the Chiss in white and yellow noted, not even diverting his gaze from the deep expanse of the stars and void before them. Thrawn very rarely stood on the bridge, except if ordered by as in the case of Lord Vader or someone like Tarkin. Even Orson Krennic could not order him before the window panel of a command deck. To see him stand there so voluntarily shook Pellaeon a little as he stood beside him. “Not your usual self Gilad, you’re usually in touch with the crew on a human level, what seems to be the problem?”

Thrawn knew Gilad had one and decided the press the wound to ease the lesion. A crippled Captain was of no use to the Grand Admiral, not for the next stage of his plans and assignments. 

Pellaeon twitched, his ageing and shocked hands trembling just a little from the shakes. Thrawn spotted them in the corner of his red eyes. “The shellshock again old friend?” He asked with what seemed to be a slither of concern. At that moment Pellaeon trembled a little more and had to hold his hands behind his back astutely. 

It was an injury let over from the war, the Clone Wars, where Gilad served on the ground, as a marine, on drop ship duties. Near the end of the conflict, the dashing and experienced trooper took a stray rocket too close to the wrong side of himself. The shakes had not subsided over the eighteen years since being relieved and were now gradually getting worse. And Thrawn actually seemed to show some concern for the man he had been serving with on and off for the entirety of his career. Gilad Pellaeon, pristine and perfect as a Captain, was always the one person Thrawn could trust, with his life. The men were almost as brothers in arms, which was thought impossible with Thrawn’s sociopathic nature. But Pellaeon was always the only person he seemed to genuinely care for just a tad. 

Gilad let out a sharp cough to try and cover his mild shame and embarrassment. “Only the past few weeks sir upon my return from Nar Shaddaa, the damn thing won’t leave me it seems,” the Captain told, trying not show he was actually pained by it. He would never show Thrawn pain, not ever, and he would never want help, not if he could come by it on his own. “Still, we have our duties, and the ship is ready to disembark from Coruscant at your command Grand Admiral,” he followed before saluting Thrawn and then turning back to look out with him. 

“I’ll arrange we make a stop on Corellia before we depart for the Unknown Regions,” Thrawn alluded, sparking Gilad’s curiosity and confusion. “You can see my physician and hopefully he can mend the damage dear friend.”

“What of the Purge Facility on Prefsbelt sir?” Pellaeon asked, fully missing why Thrawn was not seemingly more concerned with the massive breach in security General Syndulla, General Draven and Captain Andor had left them. But Thrawn was cool about the mention of it as if it had already been destroyed by the rebels.

It was most odd indeed to Gilad that Thrawn, the methodical sociopath and mass murderer of insurgents that he was, was more concerned about the Captain himself than the Dark Purge Project. 

But Thrawn did look to Pellaeon with his intense red eyes of youthfulness and cruelty and malice. “Plans are in place Captain, in conjunction with Governor Tarkin and Lord Vader,” he began to divulge. “The facility will be used as a trap, with all research being offloaded to the Maw Installation for Admiral Daala to complete. Meanwhile, this ship, as well as The Executrix will be stationed to expect a Rebel incursion on Prefsbelt. Miss Jade will take the bait of Lord Vader, and the famed Captain Cassian Andor will walk right into my prototypes,” he plotted out in his mind, relaying through his almost forked and snake-like tongue to his own reflection in the window more than Gilad. He always did it, and Pellaeon had learned to look at the man in the mirror with the same protocol as the man manifested next to him. “A large bulk of Rebel forces will be destroyed in the attack and thus their position around the Mid Rim and their Intelligence Operations will be sparse in the Core Worlds. Tarkin will have little to do to completely annihilate them, thus elevating himself even more.”

“And what of us after the mission sir? You said the Unknown Regions?” Gilad asked to check.

“I did indeed Captain. Call it my end of the deal. I grow tired of this position in the Core and Mid Rim. The Emperor has tasked my forces and I with wiping out all Rebels and insurgency in that region, as well as carving a new path for the Empire. Something of a contingency plan if you will,” Thrawn explained, even grinning as he did. It was perfect, and all he had wanted since being stationed on Coruscant to guard the nearby systems. Juno Eclipse was the perfect incursion to land in his pocket at the most opportune moment, too perfect in fact, as Pellaeon suddenly began to suspect upon Thrawn’s smile. 

He twiddled his moustache and stopped his hand from shaking behind his back once again with a little bit of a frustrated stomp of his left booted heel. 

“Something the matter Captain?” Thrawn asked, hearing the tiny stomp and even sensing the twitching and shaking of his Captain’s hands. 

Gilad had to take a breath just to collect himself and steady his intrigued heart. It was not like the old days, near the start of the Empire, where they were undertaking simple missions with unimportant intrigue. Now Thrawn was deeply plunged into the great game that was Imperial Military Politics, and Gilad had no time for it, however whenever Thrawn shared his ideas and plans with the old man he could not help but be completely enthralled by the Chiss’s intrigue skills and expertise in the whole scope of things. He was a philosophical and sociological savant and his complete lack of empathy only helped him in this arena of mental and fortuitous combat. The only others Gilad had heard could play it as well as Thrawn were Tarkin, and Ysanne Isard herself, head of Imperial Intelligence. 

It took Gilad a while to muster the courage, even now after all these years, to ask but eventually he stopped his hands and came out with what was suddenly on his mind. “Sir, beg pardon, but you let Captain Eclipse learn the location of the facility and allowed her to escape on both occasions did you not?”

Thrawn looked back into the void of space, more to the copy of himself in the reflection of the spotless window pane, and simply smiled. 

“My old friend… Of course, I did.”

Mara slashed her stolen purple lightsaber through the trunk of another smaller tree to the rest, hacking it to pieces as she worked through her intense rage and her loss. Her garb was on the floor and she was barely covered at all, in nothing but her leather trousers hugging her thighs and calves perfectly, and the rather ragged tape that she was using to cover her chest. If she hadn’t sensed that Cassian would eventually come to talk to her, through what little of the Force she could feel, she would have been slashing at trees for as long as possible with her bare breasts on show. She felt closer to nature and to her emotion the fewer clothes she had on. 

As Cassian Andor approached he dared not to look, not because he could not admit she was attractive, but of course out of the utmost respect for the woman. The wound, the hole, through her shoulder was barely even dry from the blood and yet she was slashing away with all intent, pushing through the pain and using it as her ally. 

“You know you’re going to make it worse if you keep swinging that lightsaber around,” Cassian murmured as he got closer. He was trying to make it as painless as possible but once her emerald eyes, blackened by a faint outline of red and an inner highlight of yellow, glared at him, he knew that was not going to be the case. “How long have you been out here?”

She grunted and completely slashed clean through another with one swing, chopping it down cleanly. “Since I actually woke up from the sedative your General Syndulla jabbed in my jugular. Thanks by the way, for helping me of The Ghost,” Mara sneered, heading over to another tree. He could see the anger manifested around her, it was like a murderous red glow of something foul and cruel around her. It looked as if she had gone right back to the Empire, to the Inquisition. 

“I was carted right off to the med bay, for my shoulder and arm, and then there was Draven. I needed to be debriefed about…” 

He could not finish, could not say her name, least not to her girlfriend who was standing in front of him, swinging the lightsaber around like it was a normal practice stick a padawan would learn how to block with. She had moved on to practice the only form of fighting she had been trained in the Inquisition, the only one the Sith ever fought with. But Cassian didn’t need to say her name, Mara had already foreseen his next words and extrapolated them into her mind. 

“About Juno right? About my dead girlfriend who gave her life for you?” Mara jabbed, looking right at him, into him, into his very soul. 

“She didn’t die for me, we were under fire Mara, from Thrawn and his Deathtroopers and Storm Commandos. We were both shot, and we had no ammo. I… I blacked out--”

“You let her die Cassian!” Mara roared, dashing with the Force around her and closing the gap between them in the blink of an eye. The tip of the purple blade was at his throat and she was balling already, and ready to push it just the little amount it needed to kill him. Cassian didn’t say anything after that, he knew what to do, he had done it before. 

Mara Jade was another woman who had lost someone close to her, and Cassian had been meeting people like her his whole life even from the days on Fest during the Clone Wars. The only thing he could do now was to let her get it out, and if that meant pointing the end of a deadly lightsaber at him in the middle of the forest, then he had to take that chance. He needed her, there was no doubt about it that the Alliance could not take the facility of the Dark Purge Project without her. It was time to play the role of the agent that he was. 

And it completely broke his heart. 

“It was your fault Cassian! Why didn’t you save her?!” Mara shouted at him, keeping the tip of the sabre at his throat and shutting her eyes to cry, the yellow and red dissipating from them into her old beautiful green. “What happened to you Cassian?!”

The Rebel Intelligence Agent retook a breath and calmed himself, moving his hand behind his back to the pistol tucked neatly between his pants and belt. And underhanded tactic but he bet that if he needed to, he could shoot the hilt from her, or shoot behind her to distract her then knock her out. There wasn’t much time to debate for a while, and he desperately needed her, Juno be damned. 

“There were too many of them and the cover was awful. I took out as many as I could with her, but Juno took one in the arm. After that, it was just me shooting. And there were too many Mara,” he told her, his breath and words quickening and his face taking an almost mechanistic shape as if telling her a routine. In many ways he was, he had had a few hours to think about what he was going to say to her, suddenly all the possibilities and parallels blurred and became one long explanation and speech to rally and reassure her. “I ran out of ammo trying to get a shot off at Thrawn, to kill him finally and he shot me instead. I was bleeding out so fast bacta and kolto did nothing. If it wasn’t for Juno I would have died before Draven and his men got there but…”

Mara dropped the lightsaber and kicked off of her feet on the ground, staggering away in a loop, balling her eyes out still. “But not before Thrawn’s men came to her and killed her right?” She asked as if needing to know it from him. But Cassian had missed that detail, and he thanked the stars he did. Watching Juno get shot, it would have crippled him inside more than anything in his life had before. 

Cassian didn’t say anything, he simply nodded slowly and Mara dropped her lightsaber, deactivating it. The Captain let go of the trigger of his pistol and relaxed his hand. Now was the time to inspire her and rally her, build her back up. 

“But Mara, we have to avenge her, to make sure her sacrifice wasn’t in vain, to make sure that Juno Eclipse dead for something worthwhile. Crippling the Empire and fighting for what she believed in,” Cassian began, quickly scurrying around to see to Mara and ensure that she looked into his eyes. “We need to talk to that droid Mara, and we need to stop this project for her, and then we can focus on Thrawn.

“That’s what you want, isn’t it? To take him down?” Cassian asked, trying to spike her interest in killing the man who killed Juno. And it worked, Mara looked at him like a hound to food. She was instantly ready. “Please Mara, help us take down the facility, and we can help you take down Thrawn, once and for all. We can give you resources, even a location on a Jedi who might be able to train you.”

Mara stood up at that and hooked the end of her hilt to the small loop on her belt, fixing the buckle around her front and then to grab her shirt and jacket, though she wouldn’t be putting them on. As she walked, Cassian could see the muscles on her back convulse and move, shift to emphasise how toned they were and just how strong she was. And yet she had still been beaten badly by Vader. Whoever he was, Cassian could tell from that that he was something entirely different to the rest of the Empire and the rest of the Imperial Navy and Military. He was a Sith, and he was a powerful one at that. 

But Mara, she was something else, and certainly not Jedi, not like any Cassian had ever seen, and as she walked away from him, towards the Temple again and to where the droid was ready to be started, she looked back to him. “You can give me that location, but I’m not a Jedi, Cassian, I’ll never be a Jedi.”

“Then allow me to give you the coordinates for the Alliance’s first outpost. Chopper Base,” Captain Andor insisted upon her as he caught up. 

“Why?”

“Because there’s someone there you might want to meet if you’re neither a Jedi nor a Sith,” Cassian told her, referring to something that Mara could sense was far bigger than anything they were previously talking about before. She could sense nothing but grey from Cassian’s words, and the face of the dead Kanan Jarrus. It told her she was already beginning to test the true extent of her powers, and they were growing rather rapidly the more and more she expanded her feelings and stretched out with them. Was this what the Jedi did at younger ages? Mara was only twenty-two, and yet she felt so small as a Force User. Maybe because she was compared to the legends. 

Draven was waiting for them in the small space of the base they had retrofitted to be a workshop of sorts, with engineers all over the place fixing up small sections of starfighters and other landable craft that did not have to take up the hangar. The laser cannons of X-Wings, engine parts of B-Wings, and near the back, the whole chassis of a retrofitted A-Wing in for repairs. The Rebellion was looking as if it was being taped together and held by sheets of spare durasteel. Hera or General Syndulla was waiting too, as well as Leia Organa, cast off from her white shawl dress and in something a little more practical looking with a different style of hair. She still looked beautiful and warm. Mara stood by her as Cassian saluted General Draven.

He leant into Cassian’s ear and whispered, threateningly almost with his clad iron face, brow furrowed and skin rugged. “This had better be good Andor, we won’t have much time,” he told Cassian with an undertone of bile. Corulag had already spent a slice of the resources of the fighter squadrons and the attack incoming would take sizably more. 

But the droid, a KX-series Imperial droid in slate black lay on something of an operating table, it was just a slab bench used for welding hard. 

“Is it ready?” Cassian asked Draven, while Mara rolled her eyes. 

She pushed past Leia and grabbed the chip from the side of the bench, slotting it right into the insertion port at the back side of his dome and small head. Draven and Cassian drew pistols as the droid’s eyes lit up with sparks and a cold iron mumbling of static came through his mouth grill, mumbling progressively into something that was a voice. It was robotic, static and jagged as if he had trouble talking at all. “Relax gentlemen, I’ve already met him before,” Mara told the men as the droid wobbled and kept mumbling as it manoeuvred on the bench to stand. 

“Sca-Sca-Sca-Scanning!” The droid almost coughed in his robotic voice, standing tall on the two long and thin legs. He towered over all of them instantly once he stood up straight. “Well, this certainly isn’t Corulag,” the droid voiced, looking around to spot all the repair work going on around the temple walls made of stone. 

“I don’t know whether to be thankful or… Concerned.”

Leia chuckled, along with Hera as Cassian grinned and sheathed his blaster pistol back into his belt. He could see from the sarcastic tone of the towering droid that he would not attack them. He reminded the Princess a little of a gold-plated protocol droid of hers with a silver shin plate. 

“His name is Kaytoo,” Mara began to explain before the aforementioned Kaytoo gently placed his metal hand on her delicate shoulder. Cassian did not doubt that while those hands could so tenderly hold Mara’s shoulder, they could also cripple a man, or break his neck with ease. “Designation K-2SO, Juno stole him from the Imperial Academy on Coruscant a couple of months ago for her own purposes of running information to and from the Rebellion. He’s a KX-series Imperial Combat droid.”

“Combat droid?” Hera repeated, smiling to see the droid act almost childlike around Mara, whom he was obviously having trouble identifying or remembering after being in low power mode for a while mixed in with the broken circuits she repaired. The Twi’lek chuckled and looked up at his smaller shaped head. 

He kneeled down before Mara Jade, acting very childlike, unaware of who were all around him. “Mistress Jade, I am sensing some of my circuits were broken, and have been amended by a technician, did something happen while I was in shut down?” Kaytoo asked curiously. At which point Hera stepped forward waving her hydro spanner. 

“Actually that would be me,” she announced, as Draven rubbed his brow and Leia simply looked at Mara and the droid, smiling the whole while. “I’m guessing that as we moved you from the building on Corulag to my ship, the Imperials must have damaged you, nothing I couldn’t fix, however,” General Syndulla informed Kaytoo with a pleased smile, feeling proud. 

He stood again and offered her his hand. “You have my thanks, General Syndulla.”

“You know who I am?”

Kaytoo stood even taller, looking to Mara and then to Draven and to Cassian and then back to Hera. “Captain Eclipse uploaded my databanks with relevant information of top Rebel Alliance personnel excluding the leadership,” he explained politely before pointing to General Draven. “That man is the ‘ambitious gundark’ as the Captain informed me who she disliked corresponding with,” he said without looking to the General. Leia and Hera instinctively laughed again. The droid then looked to the smaller woman in white with the beautiful smile and pure eyes. “And you are Princess Leia Organa of Alderaan. I didn’t need to access Alliance databanks for that information.”

Draven had just about had enough and holstered his pistol, looking to Cassian and then to Hera. “Can we hurry this up? I already have Red and Blue Squadron on standby ready to fly at a moment’s notice. We need to strike now before they have a chance to reinforce!”

Kaytoo glared at him. “I assume you are referring to Prefsbelt V, the location of the Dark Purge Project research and development facility correct Captain Gundark?” Again Leia did laugh, still embracing the small amount of childhood naivete that had been stifled in recent years since the formation of the Alliance under her father and Mon Mothma. Draven said nothing, simply running out of the room with all haste to his command centre in the middle of the base to alert the whole facility and ready for combat. This was it, and he kept repeating the name.

Prefsbelt.

Cassian looked to Mara, and then to Kaytoo. “Looks like it’s time to gear up people. Are you coming Kaytoo?” He asked, checking that he would have permission to take the droid along with him. By the stature and what Captain Andor knew of Imperial Combat Droids, he would invaluable to them inside the facility for dealing with any melee Stormtroopers or the Storm Commandos in lighter armour. 

“I’m going with you too,” came from Leia, who grabbed her white shawl and sank into it, ripping it at the skirt to make more of a poncho looking element of attire. With the hood down and her hair in a pretzel like twin braid, she looked rather dashing in a more renegade looking way. Cassian only smiled and saw the blaster pistol at her utility belt. 

He certainly wasn’t about to argue with a Senator’s daughter, who was the Princess of Alderaan. And none of them doubted that she could handle herself. 

“Then it’s time for me to show you what The Rogue Shadow can do Captain Cassian, destination Prefsbelt V… For Juno,” Mara told him, taking command of the situation, and of he and Leia. 

“For Juno,” Cassian repeated, and before another word could be said or another second wasted, they ran to the odd looking prototype ship, ready for another space battle, and another Rebel incursion. Only this time there would be no escape and no retreat, only victory.

Mara could sense Vader, already waiting for her there, ready for her. And she would be ready for him.

To Be Continued...


	9. In Your Heart Shall Burn Forever, Part 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Battle of Prefsbelt IV begins with Cassian, Mara, K-2SO and Princess Leia leading the charge aboard the experimental ship 'The Rogue Shadow' with Red Squadron and Admiral Raddus's task force behind them. But can they break through The Chimaera and The Executrix before making to the surface of the planet? And what awaits them below?

The blue, spiralling tunnel of hyperspace rescinded soon enough and the blackness of star dotted space hurled into view, followed by the round ball of purple and thunderous clouds that was Prefsbelt, the Emperor’s personal hive of Imperial ways. And then Mara and Cassian both noted the grey and bespoke triangle shapes that they instantly registered as Star Destroyers. Three of them, with no doubt The Chimaera right in the middle.

“I’m reading three Imperial II-Class Star Destroyers right ahead,” Kaytoo spoke in his soft and yet hollow metallic voice from the sensor station just back behind Mara and Cassian in the front seats. The little astromech Kayeight was tucked neatly by the door that led to the communication and holo-training suite in the centrepiece of The Rogue Shadow. To the left of that on the port side of the ship lay the onboard bedroom and bathroom, with a simple shower and very simple bedding. The starboard side housed the weapons and even the small cyberwarfare suite that the Imperial Droid was accessing remotely aboard. 

“Sensors and my Imperial Databanks identify the ship leading the attack group to be The Executrix, while the ship on the far right seems to be Thrawn’s command ship The Chimaera,” Kaytoo informed promptly, trying to hack into the Imperial mainframe remotely with his suite. It did not work, the access nodes were hardened and deadlocked, there was nothing he could do to space them. So he dug a little further into the commanding vessel intuitively, eager to know the officer at the helm of such a beast.

Cassian looked to Mara and then put on his headset once again, for hopefully the final time this mission. As he did so Leia moved from the bedroom to the cockpit, taking the only available seat behind Mara. It was rather cramped, obviously, the Imperials had not thought of crew space as opposed to the light frame wire construction and the stealth capabilities of the Shadow. Hence the name. 

The entire outer and rather asymmetrical framing of the ship was a polycarbide of metallic and durasteel elements with a circuit matrix that made the ship almost undetectable to a lot of scanning methods. The plan was to sneak into Prefsbelt, but upon seeing two Star Destroyers of note threw Cassian off too much to go through with it. 

“I thought I told you to stay port side Princess Leia!” Cassian sneered at the brunette as she took her seat and strapped in, blaster pistol holstered and ready for the shakedown. 

“I’m a well travelled Princess, Captain Andor, I could feel the retraction from hyperspace, and if we get shot outta space it won’t matter where I’m sitting. Call the fleet in and let’s blow up this facility!” She barked back, twice as viciously, and Cassian soon whimpered down like a defeated mutt. Served him right that he attempted to control the woman of Alderaan. Mara smiled and looked back out the front viewport. 

“I like her,” she muttered under her breath before strapping herself in and arming the ship’s fore laser cannons as well as the ventral mounted rapid repeating blaster turret. The offhanded comment reached Leia’s ears and the Princess blushed just a tad, a slightly lighter shade than Mara’s perfectly copper hair. 

Kaytoo searched and sifted through his databanks and soon came up with a name once Cassian and Mara had the ship up to full capacity and optimum fighting capabilities. “Mistress Jade! Data shows that Governor Wilhuff Tarkin is leading the defensive force!” The droid reported, before looking back at his readout screen. “Oh, thank the Maker I can turn my eyes off save looking at his face all day,” he muttered, before his small fog lights for eyes blackened and switched off. “There we are, much better.”

Shaking her head with a grin on her lips, Mara flipped the switch that brought down the shutters on the cockpit viewport, closing off the view and enveloping the whole room in a darkness. The emergency combat lighting kicked in not one second after the change in light density and Cassian was stark with annoyed confusion. “And how do you expect me to manoeuvre when I cannot see the battlefront?” He asked her in a brutish version of his Outer Rim twang of an accent. 

She did nothing but smile, more arrogantly this time as Leia and Kaytoo just looked all around the dark room, only barely illuminated by the flickering console and the dark red lighting. “Watch this Captain Andor. There’s more than a few reasons Juno stole this ship. She knew the Alliance would need it for a mission,” Mara told him before flipping another switch, which brought up the perfect and highly developed targeting suite right in front of her and Cassian, the entire scene in front of them plotted out in a lightwire frame of orange for neutral, red for hostile, and green for friendly. As the fighter wing of X-Wings and another of A-Wings advanced out in front of them, they were shown to be green, with the Star Destroyers and the horde of TIE Fighters coming for them highlighted in a stark red. 

“You ready for another shakedown? Mara Jade?” Cassian asked with his own grin of excitement, which made one grow across Leia’s mouth. 

“For Juno Eclipse, and for the Alliance, Captain Andor,” Mara replied, before looking out ahead and taking command of the ventral cannon, a smaller targeting computer growing from her chair. 

The small, shuttle style assault stealth ship flew on ahead, rejoining the fighter complement from the Rebel Task Force, which was slowly massing behind them. One large Mon Cala Cruiser commanded by Admiral Raddus once more. A Corellian Hammerhead ship, a Frigate-Class one as opposed to the usual Corvette-Class the Rebellion sported. A full group of Tantive IV’s, some smaller transports that had been retrofitted to act as gunboats as well as one larger Nebulon-B2 Frigate. It was a sizeable force, but going up against three Imperial-IIs would require more firepower than even that. Cassian knew it and so did Mara, they hardly needed Kaytoo reminding them of the odds of success every few minutes during the hyperspace trip.

The TIEs and the Rebellion fighters clashed hard with some more force than before, a couple even striking each other in space and destroying both of themselves on the collision. One TIE, as Wedge Antilles saw, collided right with a Y-Wings, but hit the craft at such an angle that the Imperial only struck his wing, and flew with a collapse in the air valve. The pilot would be suffocating in his cockpit within a second. And sure enough, as the young Wedge found his third target of a fighter, he saw the other floating, lost in space with a dead pilot. He soon relocated and fired a small burst from all four of his laser cannons, blasting one fighter out of space utterly, the solar panelled wings shattering as the centre ball detonated. The flames always mesmerised Wedge for a fraction of a second before he landed back inside of himself and found another fighter to blow up. 

“Alright Reds our mission is simple,” hailed in the leader of Wedge’s group - Red Squadron. Garven Dreis had a nasal voice, not made any better by the subpar quality of the radios inside the gradually battered X-Wings. Wedge could hardly hear him, but he knew the score. He’d be reporting in soon enough as there was not enough time to before engaging the enemy. “Mop up the fighters as the As and Bs focus on the ships, then we get Shadow-Actual down to the surface with the U-Wing squads, ya hear me?” Dreis asked before a couple rather enthusiastic pilots confirmed. “Okay, all wings report in.”

The Squadron did so in no particular order, or order of whoever clamped down on the frequency, with Wedge calling himself out near to last. “Red Two standing by and engaging the enemy!” He yelled as he refocused and shot another TIE in the wing with a tiny pepper of lasers, tearing the wing off and causing the whole thing to burst into wings of flame. 

Next Antilles called upon his targeting computer and soon looked for Mara and Cassian. “Shadow-Actual this is Red Two, I have your back all the way into the Imperial’s shadows,” Wedge committed, blasting two more TIEs off of Mara who were lacing the top and back of the ship with green lasers. Her ventral cannons could not picket them and Cassian was too busy blasting the plethora of fighters in front of him, Fighters and Interceptors both. He was wondering when the Strikers would come to play with them but was certainly dreading the time they did. 

Three came right at Cassian and Mara, the former flipping the ship in a clockwise rotation and blasting the oncoming Imperials with a well placed circular barrage of equally green laser fire. They detonated as the rest and the ship continued along the path, right towards the Star Destroyers. 

“You sure this plan is going to work Mara?” Cassian asked her, a little desperation in his lungs as he did. It was a long shot of a plan too. 

She looked back at Kaytoo, who was staring at the readout screen and wireless coordinating everything together. It was a harrowing silence that was coming from him. And Mara had no idea if things were going well in his head or not. 

“I know you’re looking at me. Look at the computer Mara, and shoot the fighters. We have a Princess on board and I don’t want to be the one Senator Organa is melting down for letting her die,” Kaytoo jibed as he continued his calculations and reading and rereading of his instruments. He needed to focus, as much as he was a droid he was having problems wirelessly attacking Thrawn’s and Tarkin’s ships. All so that the Rebel ships could all flank the third and destroy it. The Nebulon-B2 was carrying a very expensive payload of missiles and Admiral Raddus had instructed The Rogue Shadow that they would need to cripple any force that was there. 

Thrawn looked around in one of the trenches of the bridge, scanning the ensigns and the console with his every glooming red eyes. Like he was seeing everything with perfect and crystalline vision. And where he could, he corrected the officers at their duties and increased his ship’s efficiency by himself. All while Gilad Pellaeon observed the fighter groups clashing. 

“No sign of the Shadow sir?” Gilad called down to the Grand Admiral as he corrected the small woman who was monitoring the ship’s wireless network defence system. His eyes spotted small glitches in the current waveform and length and instantly saw through it. Right back through the interference and the empty space and into Kaytoo’s own positronic mind. 

Gilad waited on a response, but Thrawn was looking intently into the screen and the lights flashing on and around it. 

“Oh, I think I have an idea where our guests of honour are,” Thrawn mused more to himself than to Gilad as he looked over the Flight Lieutenant's shoulder. “Ensign please monitor that uploaded line of code and break off our slave circuits with Governor Tarkin’s Destroyer,” the Grand Admiral ordered his lackey before standing straight and looking up to Pellaeon as he looked down to Thrawn. “And then send down the Deathtroopers.”

“I suspect you’ll be accompanying them, Sir?” Gilad asked, pulling a small set of micro binoculars from his belt and looking down to his commander. 

Thrawn smiled once again. “Not this time Captain. I believe Cassian Andor will meet his maker some day soon. But not to my hands. And Mara Jade will have her hands more than full in the facility.” He made his way back up to the main deck of the bridge and looked outside the viewport, still smiling. He could see Andor’s plan a mile away and allowed him to go through with it. Disconnecting the slave circuits would make the battle a lot more interesting. “Prepare for a power down my friend.”

Kaytoo’s eyes flickered, and his head shook. “No, no, no! The Chiss Imperial space slug!” the droid exclaimed, waving a fist at the targeting hologram underlay of the cockpit viewport. 

Cassian looked to Mara in between short bursts of laser, blasting another TIE Interceptor out of the way and leaving one Red Squadron Pilot free from hassle. “He can eve swear? What kind of droid is he?” Captain Andor teased in passing. 

“I heard that meatbag!” Kaytoo retaliated before tending back to the console at hand and trying to work around the small problem that had arisen. 

“What’s wrong Kaytoo?” Leia asked him from her stationary and solitary seat near the door. She had been clutching onto the underside of it for more than she was used to. She had not really been on a ship this small and this cramped in such a hurricane of laser fire and explosions that were giving the inertia dampeners a good and proper beating. It was making her nervous and as they waited and looked to give out, she was looking to be sick. “And are we taking too much fire?” She then asked Cassian as the ship rocked and rolled a little more. 

Cassian and Mara both looked around the dashboard and almost cried in dismay. They were taking hits and lot of them at the back quarter and the front, making their suicide run right to the Star Destroyer. Cassian had one plan in mind that would make the shot down to the surface a little easier. 

“Angle the deflector shield, now,” he told Mara with a stern voice and leant over her a little to brace the dampeners and even turn off the artificial gravity. Leia’s hair and Mara’s began to float like they were in water suddenly and the later gasped. She gave him a look of angered confusion but he powered down her ventral cannon too and even some of the forward lasers and primed the main fusion missile the Shadow was carrying. 

Kaytoo even was distracted, however, he initiated the wireless hack of Tarkin’s Destroyer and looked to Cassian and the front readout of the battle to try and predict his plan. 

“You’re honestly going to attack the Star Destroyer?” Mara screamed at Cassian as she took her hands off of the control console and gave a disgusted look. This was a completely foolish move and a seizure of power of what she viewed as her ship. 

“I’m going to make that Chiss wish he didn’t bring his precious Chimaera into this battle,” Cassian almost whispered back to her and then turned to Leia and Kaytoo in the lack of gravity. “Make sure you’re strapped in and Kaytoo give me a target lock on the left most shield generator of The Chimaera. Then a distance to target.”

“This is suicide!”

“No, it’s actually the only way to cripple the Grand Admiral now. He’ll have to retreat with subpar shields. Tarkin will be gone too. That leaves one more Destroyer between the fleet and the planet. Do it Cassian!” Kaytoo implored him, and thus the Captain accelerated, blasting through two more fighters coming for them with the little amount of power left to the laser cannons. 

Wedge saw them trailblazing out of the swarm of TIEs and followed, more Reds converging too as the rest mopped up the TIEs, all to assist in blasting Thrawn’s Star Destroyer and crippling what they could of it. And they did, with Wedge hanging back a little to let the lead of Garven and some more experience wingman take change and blast the forward and unshielded cannons of the ship with what little proton torpedoes they had, then peppering the smaller turrets with laser fire. All to clear the path as Kaytoo transmitted their plan to the squad via comlink. 

“We have a ninety-eight point six percent chance of failure Captain Andor, and that is in just reaching the planet surface,” Kaytoo reminded him as the small done of the shield generator crept into view more and more. The target lock held but Cassian’s nerves gripped him. His hands trembled and he could hardly keep hold of the joystick and could see his fingers shaking over the button to fire the missile. He could feel the doubt, his anxiety, he could see Juno’s face. 

And then he felt Mara’s hand on his shoulder before he saw her smiling face. How was she so relaxed? 

“He means well. Now fire!”

The sped along, closer and closer and Cassian looked back to the monitor, he saw the distance, it was close enough to ensure the terminal velocity of the missile. It was now or never, and Cassian prayed in an instant to Juno and to the Force. And he slammed down his finger, the missile fired. The rest happened too fast to manage. 

Suddenly they were passed the Destroyer and looking directly at Prefsbelt. They had blown it up. It was done, Thrawn’s Chimaera was crippled. The shields were down and already over the com, Cassian could hear the Rebels advancing as Thrawn was jumping to hyperspace, his tail no doubt between his legs. Tarkin was not far behind. They had done it, now all they had to do was destroy the rest. 

“All wings form up. Red Squadron escorts the transports down to the facility and all cruisers fire on that least Destroyer,” Admiral Raddus was ordering about as the battle cascaded in favour of the Rebellion. “Shadow-Actual, your mission timer is clocked at one galactic hour, any more and we’ll be overwhelmed and you’ll be thwarted. Get down there and blow that place to bits. May the Force be with you.”

To Be Continued...


	10. In Your Heart Shall Burn Forever, Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cassian, Mara and K-2SO fight into the very heart of the Dark Purge facility to destroy it once and for all, with Rebels backing them but time is running out. Mara faces Darth Vader one final time, and Cassian's mission, career and life hang in the balance.

The repetitive whirl of the alarm system gave Cassian Andor a sense of relief, of a return to what he did and did best. He was grounded, both literally and figuratively. As he, Mara and a full squad of Rebel Marines, with General Draven still in the air as the Nebulon-B2 Cruiser strafed in the skies above the facility, ran through the facility with rifles in hands. 

They had less than an hour on the mission timer and the centre of the facility was the perfect place to plant the charges, which would set off a chain reaction to destroy the entire compound.

The entire group came to a large durasteel bulkhead, the door leading to the heart of the facility, and as the plans had dictated, the fastest way to the centre where they needed to go. Another way did exist, but traversing it would take more time, and would most likely be filled with Stormtroopers and Storm Commandos waiting to light up the marines like Life Day trees. But Mara bit her lip, she knew it would not be that easy and as they ran down the main hangar bay, empty from the TIEs that had left to join the sky battle. She could feel the dark feeling she had felt on Corulag, the creeping shadows of the Dark Side. She knew who and what it was, just beyond the bulkhead. 

As soon as the massive bulkheads split open the group skidded and finally stopped before the whole door was open to reveal the enforcer standing in their way, between the Rebels and the rest of the facility. It was Darth Vader. 

Mara stiffened up and moved herself to the front of the group of soldiers, pulling the hilt of Mace Windu’s long lost lightsaber from her utility belt. Vader revealed his too and activated it, the red menacing beam of light flashing from it in an instant under the sound of that same ghastly breath. 

“I’ll handle this,” Mara announced over the wheezing of Darth Vader, trying not to show the slight fear rattling around in her bones. She had to control her fear this time, she knew that it was the stereotypical line of advice from every Jedi Master of the old Order. But it rang true to Mara Jade in the moments as they rippled through time like a wave of emotion, like the very waves thrashing against the shore of Mara’s body. She had to control her fear, to recognise it and run with it, to use it as an ally, like any other emotion she could use it and would have to now. This rematch would be the hardest one she would fight. There was still no hope of victory, but Mara was not going for victory over Vader, she was going for survival.

All she had to do was survive and then run. Run and win in another way. 

“We’ll take the long way,” Cassian told Mara with a pat on the shoulder before they all cleared the massive room and left for the series of work corridors that skirted around and through the testing laboratories. They were all gone in seconds and Mara was left alone with Vader, staring him down as she removed the small robe that was concealing her armoured slimwear. Her shoulder was guarded by a slab of plasteel armour that covered her entire main arm, with a hood that she pulled over her head. Mara looked slim, and shady in her black tightly fitting combat suit and hugging plasteel armour, and she looked good, almost proud of herself. In that day that had passed since facing Vader the first time, Mara was feeling so much better and even stronger, feeling a little control over her emotions and skills. She could tell this was going to be better and more thrilling.

“I defeated you before and you escaped with your life, I shall not be so forgiving this time…” Vader threatened, his lightsaber rising and his feet taking him forward towards her. 

Mara pressed the light button on the hilt of her sabre and out came the shiny purple blade, humming and whooshing as she swayed it around in the air and then overhead. “You could not kill me yesterday and you will not kill me today,” she spat at him, her eyes darkening a little and her anger rising to the surface as her ally. It was time to stand up and fight him one more time. For Juno. 

“You overestimate yourself, Mara Jade. Now experience the full power of the Dark Side,” the masked enforcer menaced again, before she and he finally lunged towards each other, lightsabers striking, red upon purple so hard that even sparks flew off and all around them. A couple fell upon Mara’s cheek, branding her with a small scrape and wound already as the flare blazoned over Darth Vader’s red eyes, the eyes of a Sith Lord and of someone who Mara knew was deeply disturbed. But she only had to survive long enough. 

A quick riposte took Mara around his side and to his back, where she attempted to get off another low sweep at his legs, but Vader practically phased around and guarded against her strike quickly, parrying her off and then striking down hard against her. She held her blade steadfast and took the blow, which rattled her bones and almost broke her arms. Next, she took initiative and struck his chest with a high kick of her knee. The low and bass like wretch and rumble that came from Vader’s machine-like lungs made Mara almost smile. She could feel the pain and the shock coming from him. He was shocked himself, as he felt the collision between knee and chest. It had winded the Dark Lord and instinctively he outstretched with his free hand and pushed her away from his pained body with an exhume of the Force. She was on the other end of the room, away from him as he regained breath and composure from the suit he was encased in. 

Vader hadn’t felt something that raw in over decade, and it was half exhilarating and equally stunning to him. 

“It seems since our least duel you have learned to use your fear and anger to your advantage,” Vader announced, slashing at the air with his lightsaber and gripping his free fist in a show of regal force. He looked like dark royalty, Mara presumed, if she saw him in some other setting she would assume that was what the Dark Lord was. Some form of ruling family on some barbaric planet. Perhaps that made it all the worse to know that he was the right hand of the ruler of most of the known Galaxy. “But you will need more than raw emotion to defeat me,” he continued, menacingly as he strode over towards her. 

Mara grabbed hold of her fear and channelled it inwards, readying herself and trying to calm her mind, to tap into that ever exposed vein of anger and pure hatred that Thrawn had excavated when he killed Juno. Now it was ripe for extraction and refinement to use against Vader. She would need all the skill and power that Palpatine and the Inquisition had exposed to her, had taught her she had. She could feel it. Feel the Force around her and flowing through her, like she was a conduit and node for its will and might. She could feel herself becoming one with it on a physical level like most Jedi Masters of old. 

But Mara knew in her mind she was certainly not a Jedi. And she would never want to be. 

“I don’t have to beat you, Vader,” Mara grunted as she felt the pain of a massive build up in her arms and flowing to her fingers as they became tiny and powerful rods for her next gamble. She had only seen Palpatine perform it once, on one of his visits to the Inquisition Headquarters. She had seen him electrocute one of her friends for refusing to kill a fellow hopeful. From then on she had tried to learn the technique, and now she could feel it all gathering in her hands. 

“But I can definitely deal some damage, you mechanic, traitorous son of a bitch!” Mara roared before deactivating her purple blade and releasing the massive buildup of Force Lightning in her hands. She sent it directly at Vader, blasting him with volt upon volt and sparking him with a mass that was conducting all over him. She was using all of herself, just to blast him. And he was taking it all, having missed the block.

The hulking monster and murderer of countless of innocents over the seventeen years since his ascension had now become one massive lightning rod. Mara was making sure he took all of it, over the tormenting and harrowing wheeze and hum of his mechanics screaming and breaking. His suit could only take so much but Mara could not stop, no matter how much pain she sensed from him. It was as if a light had flickered on and she could feel the Force with her and pass all the way through her fingers only to be blasted right at him like a javelin of raw energy. 

Mara Jade, was furious as she electrocuted him. “You think you’re powerful?! Well, have all the power you handle Skywalker! I know who you are! I know what you did! You killed my family when I was a kid! Now handle revenge like a true Sith would! You coward! Coward! Traitor! Murderer!”

Meanwhile, Cassian reloaded, pushing further and further down the corridor that was far too small for his liking. Kaytoo and General Draven stood with him, along with a Captain Antilles and two more troopers, their blast helmets barely staying on their heads. The rest of the strike team lay dead or dying as the Storm Commandos and the Deathtroopers kept them pinned. And it was beginning to look dire.

Too much opposition and too many allies were down. It was all on Cassian and time was running out very rapidly. 

“Raddus you have my authorisation. Damn that blast shield if you have to send in the Reds and deploy bombing run. Do not let this place stand once that mission timer is out. Do you get me?” Draven bellowed down the comlink before tossing yet another flashbang detonator down the corridor.

Antilles and Cassian saw the three or so Commandos stunned and fired rapidly and precisely, cutting them down to size and leaving the five or so Deathtroopers standing between them and the main reactor of the facility. The plan was shot to hell and they had resorted to blowing the place up as Kaytoo hacked into the mainframe. 

“Kaytoo talk to me!” Cassian yelled behind him before huddled behind a pillar on the side of the corridor as two lances of magenta came towards him. The sparks of the laser burn on the durasteel spread across the ride side of his face and made him wince in a little flutter of pain. “Talk to me Kaytoo!” He shouted again as the troopers annihilated the last of the Rebel fighters bar Draven and Antilles.

That left four of them, against five troopers, and the whole base on red alert and time running out. They needed something or they were all going to die. 

The droid, without expression except for a flicker of the nodes that were his plain eyes, said nothing as he looked into the diagnostic screen aside the port he was accessing. It took several seconds but then he retracted his hand and looked to Cassian, bending over a little to accumulate to the height. “Cassian! I’ve downloaded all the research and erased the Imperials’ database, it’s all gone from here but I discovered they’ve moved it to another facility, something called ‘The Maw Installation’ and I find no records of it in my databanks,” Kaytoo reported, looking rather enthusiastic and even high, if were possible for a droid to feel such an effect. 

The Captain smiled and even rubbed the back of the droid’s head as if he were a dog. “I could kiss you Kaytoo.”

“Please, do not do that. Not only am I a droid, but the average mouth of an organic species contains enough bacteria to even kill some life forms,” the droid reported, soon falling back into his very methodical and even salty tones of dialect, with the little glitchy flutter. “There just lies one more task Cassian. I must delete the databanks of this facility from the Imperials Archives, otherwise, they can access it at any time and we do not have long before they realise that!”

“Where do we have to go?” Cassian asked his metallic friend. 

The droid pointed down the corridor with what Cassian took as a deadpan of extreme disdain for the direction he did point at. “Just down this corridor, and through the small security checkpoint,” he informed the Captain, he sighed and looked monumentally more than fed up. Tired was not the word close to describing his feelings for this mission now. 

But as he looked to the Deathtroopers, and then to Draven, he heard a louder, more hissing discharge of a sleeker and more prudent model of blaster rifle. It sounded loud enough and the right frequency to be a sniper rifle model, and yet the large and thick bolts he saw come from down the corridor, all five of them, were assault rifle grade. And before any of the men knew it, all Deathtroopers were down and their mystery assailant was standing ahead of them. 

“Well come on gentlemen, we’re running out of time aren’t we?” Came the sassy and proud voice of Princess Leia Organa, hoisting the barrel of her stolen assault rifle over her shoulder. It was stolen, no doubt from one of the Storm Commandos or other Officers guarding the facility. Cassian knew she could handle herself and that she knew how to fire and bare arms, but not on that scale. She was more efficient and skilled than some of the best fighters in the Alliance he had worked with. 

Draven and Antilles said nothing as they stacked up against the door of the checkpoint, but Cassian smiled to her. “Is this what you political types call a ‘Diplomatic Solution’?” He asked, teasing her with his rugged and suave smile. The smile that could only be performed by a more exotic member of the Outer Rim family of worlds. 

“No I think my father uses the term ‘Aggressive Negotiations’” Leia responded with her own Alderaanian smile and even a sly wink. Already Cassian could tell, as well as the elder gents that she had a thing for scoundrels and less than nice men. 

“Through here, and we should be quick about it!” Kaytoo told them, picking up one of the Deathtrooper’s rifles and holding it ready as Antilles got the door.

Still, Mara maintained her shocking barrage of Force Lightning on Vader, walking steadily towards him and piling more and more handfuls of electricity into his metal skin and wired bones. She was to melt the very metal of his mask and expose the face she had heard had been burned two decades ago in the final days of the Clone Wars. She walked closer to him and he sank to his knees, crippled with the pain and the energy that was corroding his entire body. Next to the feeling of being burned alive in the pit of a volcano where his castle on Mustafar now stood this was a very close excruciating second in terms of pain. The stream and current of amps set his insides aflame and he wanted to vomit. The cybernetics that was currently overloading and bursting throughout him prevented that but it made Vader wheeze and cry out in pain. 

“Stop! Stop this! Mercy!” She even heard come from his machine lungs. 

But the anger and the rage and the irrational and inhumane urge to prolong his pain and suffering was wrapped around Mara like a cloak that consumed her. And it was dragging her down and down, deeper and deeper to the level of darkness that Vader’s very being exhumed. 

“Why should I? You never had any for anyone! Not for my family! Not for Mace Windu! Not for every single person in the Jedi Temple on Coruscant!” She roared into his face as the Force fed into her and she bled it out and channelled it back into Vader, who at this point was a pure lightning rod. Taking every atom of energy she was propelling with splendid sparks and rapid current. 

“Murderer!” She screamed, her eyes turning yellow and a deep red around them as her vision burned. She couldn’t control it, and even Vader saw it, he could feel it in her, throughout her and all around her and the power was so raw and unstable he dared not attempt to contain it. He couldn’t even stand. 

He pushed past the pain, looking through the red lenses of his horrid mask and looking deeply into Mara’s eyes. “Mara. Stop. Please.”

She did not stop. She couldn’t, it was all too much, and images of Juno flashed before her, even though Vader did not kill her. He would have, and if not he was still Palpatine’s right hand. He was the face of the Sith and the Enforcer of the Empire, he had to die, she had to keep killing him and making him suffer for all those who has suffered with her in the years since Palpatine had usurped control over most of the Galaxy. It was right, it was justice, it was what she had to do. This was what had to be done, the only way to beat the forces of evil and destruction, to fight them with equal measures of destruction only to defeat them. Desperate times called for disparity within men and women. 

“I hate you!” Mara screamed at Vader and pressed more and more lightning into him, blasting away his outreaching hand that was begging for a stay of execution. He did not want to feel any more of the pain she was inflicting upon him, it was torture, arduous and less than any living being deserved. 

It was something Palpatine, and only Palpatine would do. Death by prolonged lightning. And Vader had seen it before. 

Suddenly, Mara felt something wash over her, a feeling that made her body grow completely numb, from head to toe and before long she could not feel her arms or the energy coming out of her fingers. She was shocked and feeling timeless so suddenly. As if she was possessed, or even dead. Had something killed her? What it Thrawn finishing the couple?

“Mara, Mara Jade,” said an old and ethereal voice, coming from she could not fathom where. It felt like the elderly and polite tones were coming from the other end of the universe. “You must stop this. You must let him go, Mara. For it is consuming you as it consumed him.”

She did not know how to respond for a moment but soon found her own thoughts speaking for her. He responded without her even saying anything. “He has killed, yes, but killing him this way will only see you take his place in one way or another. His desire to control, to dominate, is now passing into you Mara, as it had held so many people. Spare him, Mara.”

‘I can’t, not after everything,’ Mara spoke in her mind, her teeth gritted as she struggled even now to keep the chain of lightning going. The haze of rage was lifting from over her eyes and the yellow irises were returning to their emerald green. She was looking into his eyes. Into the eyes of Darth Vader, through his red lenses and then deeper into the once eyes of Anakin Skywalker. And she could see Skywalker in there still, deep inside the cage of metal and negative emotion and darkness. 

‘There is still good in him isn’t there?’ Mara asked the mysterious voice in her mind.

“Yes, there is, and there always has been,” he told her, almost getting closer and coming into being beside her. But there was still no one there and the voice was still light years away from her. He was so comforting, a voice like aged caramel with a slight earthiness to it, grounded and subliminally kind. She felt already like she could trust this voice if it even existed. Mara hardly knew if this was even real or just her own mind trying to get her to stop torturing Vader. He was crippled beyond any hope of fighting her anytime soon. He was spent and lucky to still be breathing this long. Anyone else would have fried completely a while ago. 

She breathed, and stopped, ceased the lightning coming from her hands and absorbed the rest into her own skin, which made her tremble. Vader himself was on one knee and stuck there, unable to get up and begging for breath, his charred respiratory system still trying to cope with the trauma and the suit attempting to assist. 

But it was done, she managed to control herself and stop. And even Mara was panting for breath, realising the atrocity she had committed and her lack of care. She would have continued, if not for the voice. 

She ran, ran quickly and out of the facility and back to the ship, she had to leave him there. 

“Move! Move! Go! Move!” Cassian yelled and shouted at the top of his lungs to any and all remaining Rebels around him as he, Draven, Kaytoo and Antilles sprinted out and away from the main facility hub, with Leia on the droid’s back. They all jumped and the whole thing went up in flames in a massive explosion that levelled the main block and set fire to the rest. Mara brought the Shadow along near the stragglers and one by one they all climbed on board. And like that, in a flash and an instant, it was done. 

The whole Dark Purge Facility was burning and blazing away before them, and as Cassian took the helm, with a quick hug of his dear friend Mara they left for the stars once again, with the Empire defeated in their wake. 

One Day Later...

“They still managed to offload some of the data to this Maw Installation, but we’re on their heels on that, we’ll soon erase the rest of that data and burn any other Dark Purge Facilities,” Cassian reported to Mara, walking down the length of the hangar field, slowly making their way to the Rogue Shadow. Leia was with them, and Kaytoo inside the Yavin base disseminating his databanks and giving Generals Draven and Dodonna more outpost and Imperials bases of note to take down. It was going to be a long job, but an easier one with that droid on board.

Leia was looking bittersweet, happy, content with a small and covert victory for now but also sad. Because she knew that Mara was taking the ship and leaving. She would not allow the Alliance to keep her there, she could not stand for it. As for the Shadow, she was commandeering it for now, but Mon Mothma was bound to turn a blind eye with a slight word from the Princess. “Oh, but are you sure you won’t stay?” The young royal asked, the twang of Alderaanian in her melodic voice. “The Alliance could sure use another Jedi with Ezra Bridger unaccounted for.”

Mara smiled back at her, silently informing her there was no way. “Nah, you guys don’t need me. And besides, without a teacher or a mentor, I’m not anything but a failed member of the Inquisition.”

“That doesn’t mean you couldn’t really help us as we go forward. There’s talk from my father and the other leaders to openly declare an official degree of Rebellion, make all this real in the eyes of the Senate,” Leia continued, relishing the splendour of their dangerous lives of criminality. She was still a little naive to the reality of Rebellion but neither Cassian nor Mara were anymore. If they were not clued into the real state of what warfare was under Palpatine’s oppressive regime, then this mission had certainly done that. 

Cassian was still coping with what he had seen on this mission more than any other. 

“Well, I made you a promise Mara Jade,” Cassian told her, handing her a data pad, a hard file and then a small data card. Then, once she took them, he thrust a holocom into her hand and closed her fingers around it, trying to make sure Leia could not see it. 

Mara got the hint and stored them all in her inside breast pocket. “You’re sure this will lead me to General Rahm Kota?” She asked, a little twinkle in her eye. 

“It leads to where we knew he was last. Nar Shaddaa, we don’t know if he is there now, but it’s a start,” Cassian corrected, still smiling despite the ounce of pain behind his face he was feeling for losing Mara now, this way. He still saw it as his own fault for this, for her leaving, because there was nothing to make her stay. Juno was still dead, and Captain Andor still felt this irrational guilt, for the first time in his career as a Rebel Intelligence Agent. He was not used to feeling guilt at all. 

Still, a lead for Mara, a start, was all she needed, and it meant the sooner she would or could come back. “I’m going to miss you Mara, more than I thought,” he told her, before embracing her in a warm and mutually friendly hug, cuddling her on the spot as Leia waited her turn. Then she hugged Mara too, and before they knew it goodbyes were said and the ginger was aboard the Rogue Shadow and taking off into the sunset, leaving Leia and Cassian to look into it. 

She left him soon enough without another word, and Cassian just looked into the red sky, the large gas giant that was Yavin III above the fading blue and looming sunburnt orange. There was still work to be done, the Empire to fight, and good friends to fight for. 

Cassian thought of Juno and declared to himself that he would honour her in his own way, by one day defeating the Empire or at least catalysing its collapse. He would do something worthy of honouring her. 

But for now, he looked forward to the next exciting mission, to the Maw Installation…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cassian will return in 'Cassian Andor: Black Star'
> 
> Mara will return in 'Mara Jade: The Force Unleashed'


End file.
